“We have formed a super-organism,” announces Tim Flannery.

“There will be no ‘outside’, there is no ‘other’. We will form a global community with a common set of shared beliefs …

“We will be a regulating intelligence for the planet.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2011/apr/04/tim-flannery-global-shared-beliefs-video

This is one of our highly paid advisors to our government.

No wonder some are calling for an early election.

"Resistance is futile.
You will be assimilated."

Doubtless a borg member of this world-wide collective intelligence, Tim Flannery seems to be spruiking 'dalektical materialism'. You know,

"Exterminate! EXTERMINATE!"

Where is Doctor Who when you need him? A new episode beckons: 'Doctor Who and the Climate Changers'. Quick, everyone get inside the Tardis. I'm sure the good Doctor won't be long. Can't wait to meet his new assistant! Wonder if she's a blonde?

It must be good being a Time Lord. You know, being able, at the press of a few 1960s electro-mechanical buttons and the display of a few vulvular thermionic glows, to visit the climate of a thousand years hence and return with CO2 readings little different from those of today.

[...... Fade to moog synthesiser playing 'Doctor Who' theme music. DUM DI DI DUMP, DUM DI DI DUMP, dum di di dump, dum di di dump. WHO-OO-OO, oh who will we dump? DI DI DEE deep dudu, will Jooliar do? Oo-ooo. TO THE DUMP, TO THE DUMP, to the dump, to the dump ......]

Did you watch the video to understand what Flannery is saying, or just read the headline?

It appears to me that if you did, you did not understand it.
Not surprising though, a lot of conservatives don't understand evolutionary concepts.

Dear Banjo,

This bloke hasn't fallen from his tree. He's actually trying to preserve "the tree" so to speak or at least point out that we need to preserve the ecological balance of the planet and the health of many of its species, including ourselves. Recently an awareness of an "ecological crisis" has led social and natural scientists from several disciplines to focus on the complex interrelationship among industrialization, technology, population growth, and the global environment.

The technology of large-scale industrialisation poses two major problems. First, it generates pollution of the natural environment, threatening or destroying life in a chain reaction that can run from the tiniest microogranism to human beings. Second it depletes natural resources such as wood, oil, and minerals, many of which are in short supply and cannot be replaced

The question that arises is whether a world population that will increase drastically over the years and therefore produce many more people to consume and pollute can be supported by the environment.
Tim Flannery is being optimistic - in suggesting that human beings will come together in solving this problem globally.

This problem is of course an exceedingly difficult one to solve, for several reasons. First, some people and governments see pollution as a regretable but inevitable by-product of desired economic development - "where there's smoke, there's jobs."

Second, control of pollution requires international co-ordination, for one country's emissions or pesticides can end up in another country's air or food.

Third, the effects of pollution may not show up for many years, so severe environmental damage can occur with little public awareness that it's taking place. Lastly, preventing or correcting pollution can be costly, technically complex, and sometimes the damage is irreversible, impossible.

However, most industrialised nations are now actively trying to limit the effects of pollution, however, the populous less developed countries are more concerned with economic growth, and tend to see pollution as the price they have to pay for it. Tim Flannery sees that
the more developed (thinking) people will win out. Fingers-crossed he's right!

I agree that Flannery is talking bilge.

But I'm more shocked by Forrest Gumpp. Having long been in awe at the "Savant of OLO", it's disillusioning finding him bandying phrases like "dialektical materialism" around as if it was relevant here. Dialectical Materialism was Engel's naturalised, reductionist version of Marx's "Historical Materialism", and was eagerly taken up as doctrine by the Bolsheviks.
Flannery is in fact of the neoliberal ilk and the dystopia he invokes appears to seem to him a natural complement to the natural selection he worships. On another occasion, and I wish I could remember when as I could use it, he openly spruiked the competitive neoliberal dynamic over obsolete socialist notions.
Indeed the conservative cohort here is conservative n the extreme; globalisation is an ultra-right neoliberal campaign and has nothing to do with socialist collectivism. The most dire social-political threat facing the world now is the same as that which threatened the world between the wars, namely fascism, the extreme form of nationalism. It is this cohort that is militating against economic globalisation.
In the kind of world Marx envisioned, one not driven by economic rationalism and commodification, genuine cultural and national distinctiveness would logically undergo a rebirth.
The kind of nationalism that is currently ascendant, based on fear, is devoid of content--protectionist flag-waving--is comprised of a single currency, whatever it might be prima facie.

I don't expect most of the conservative cohort at OLO to be able to discriminate their prejudice intelectually, but you surprise me Forrest. Or have I misunderstood?

<< This bloke hasn't fallen from his tree. He's actually trying to preserve "the tree" so to speak or at least point out that we need to preserve the ecological balance of the planet and the health of many of its species, including ourselves. >>

Well put Lexi.

Banjo, I think that Flanney’s message on this occasion is quite ethereal and difficult for many to grasp. He does perhaps sound a tad loopy in the vid. But he’s right on the mark.

I’m not sure if his optimistic approach, and often overly scientific expression for the ordinary person, is the right way to go about it. In fact, I’ve felt quite critical of him at times for what seems to be such a positive and hence superficial expression of our immense forthcoming problems due to population overload in conjunction with a major decline in our energy budget as we move beyond peak oil, and climate change, to name but two concomitant issues.

But the doom and gloom message of the type delivered by David Suzuki and Paul Ehrlich, as true as it is, is just not penetrating our collective thick skulls any more, if it ever was. So a new approach is needed.

Forrest Gumpp,
before you tear me to bits, on a re-read I've just noted your "dalek-tical materialism". Oh dear, I am a silly sausage sometimes.
I beg your indulgence..

Squeers says:

"... you surprise me Forrest.
Or have I misunderstood?"

Misread, perhaps, Squeers. What I spelled was 'dalektical'. Surely you are familiar with daleks, from the days of 'Doctor Who', the Time Lord of the Tardis, that famed BBC SF series from the Sixties? Now if I remember correctly, daleks, if ever once they got you in their sights, were the extreme 'dematerializers' of their time. Acting in concert in a pack, it was almost as if they, too, were parts of a 'super organism' possessed of its famous one-word (oft repeated) vocabulary 'exterminate!': they encouraged one another materially. And yes, I'll admit to 'materialism' in that context being an inverted pun, an 'und' if you are well teutored in the genre of such humour.

I'm not trying to be Bolshie, Squeers. (And I'm a tad disappointed that nobody has picked up on the conflation of the Borg of 'Star Trek: Next Generation' with the 'Doctor Who' series, but I guess that's life on OLO for a contralabelist like myself. I'll assimilate it somehow.)

It was, after all, a Saturday. I was having a sabbatical. Banjo, a long time OLO user, generally quotes accurately, and his quote of Flannery was analogous to a description of a head in a rugby scrum, just too good to ignore. So I kicked it. It was fun. I had been bored. AGW is boring. Nobody was posting on the articles or topics I wanted them to. Wasn't that mean of them?

Apropos Banjo and his quoting of Flannery, I can't believe Bugsy's swipe at Banjo suggesting he did not watch the video. Of course Banjo must have watched the video! Where else on that page could he have got his quote? And just to put the matter properly to rest, the headline on the linked page says 'Comment is Free'; accordingly, I have been free with my comments.

Like 'FredinSpain' in the Comment comments says:

"Anybody can spout the crap in the article, it
takes an Australian to really make a good job of it."

"I can't believe Bugsy's swipe at Banjo suggesting he did not watch the video. Of course Banjo must have watched the video! Where else on that page could he have got his quote?" -Forrest

Really Forrest? I would have thought it would be obvious! Selective , out of context quotes that just happen to exactly match selective, out of context quotes from both Andrew Bolts blog, http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/flannery_flips

and Tim Blair's blog at the Daily Telegraph:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/the_great_day_has_come

Coincidence? Perhaps. But I think unlikely.

Of course, Flannery is talking about an emergent property of human society that is starting to take shape, in that we are starting to become specialist in our division of labour and highly interdependent on each other for our own survival. We are no longer merely a 'herd', but we are also not, nor will ever be a collectivist centrally controlled 'hive mind' populated by drones that conservatives immediately like to envision such ideas.

This idea is not political, it's just an observation that we are starting the formation of a global society and has been enabled by telecommunications and 'globalisation'. Yes, Flannery is optimistic that we will come together to solve many our collective problems that affect our ability to survive, but for some reason many conservatives don't like that idea. I guess most of them don't think we have problems in the first place.

Bugsy,
if Flannery had an ounce of credibility he'd be denouncing the engine of globalisation, which has little to do with telecommunications and everything to do with the movement of capital. I notice Flannery invokes James Lovelock's concept of Gaia, yet he doesn't acknowledge or contradict Lovelock's famous pessimism. Moreover the very notion that we are somehow cooperating in an international sense is twaddle. The division of labour stuff too is garbage; we have a strict division as always between elites and working classes, it's just that working classes now increasingly wear white collars. Blue and white collar workers just have high-sounding job descriptions now, and a condescending career path mapped out for them. To imagine modern western society, in its current form, is or ever will be working in concert is fantasy. However, if you care to tackle the question, may I ask, to what end?
The reality is that modern western societies are profoundly alienated within and downright dysfunctional. We have not formed a super-organism--the man's on recreational drugs, as opposed to anti-depressants like the rest of us--what we have is a series of malignant tumours metastasising from west to east.

I would love to know what our "shared beliefs" are going to be!

Flannery has not only fallen from his tree, he landed on his head!

Blokes can fall off trees, but there is no bloke there!
Tim Flannery, if indeed he ever lived, is now dead. It is the voice of the dead which you hear. Yes, his lips move, his face change expressions, his words are consistent, scientific and reflect logical ideas, but there is no one behind that face, only a mechanism is left, no conscious being who is aware of who he is. This is the dead face of materialism.

Yes, evolution works as described, but evolution is unconscious, it is dead.
Why should we who are alive and conscious be serving evolution? Why should we serve a dead mechanism? What reason have we to be helping a dead force to fulfill its programming?

Beliefs, whether private or shared, are no substitute for life, nor is intelligence. Computers can also have ideas, and one day they may even have more complex ideas than we are capable of and perhaps even be more intelligent than any of us, yet it does not give them one ounce of awareness.

So what if Gaia evolves? So what if even whole galaxies take shape? these are inanimate objects, and so also is human society. It makes no sense to sacrifice one's life, or any part thereof, in the worship of such dead idols.

Matter is but a tool, society is but a tool, even our own body is but a tool, but a vehicle. All these will perish sooner or later, so any desire to prolong their existence or enhance their functionality is plainly insane and the idea of "progress" plainly stupid. The idea that life on earth will continue and further develop a bit longer is not optimistic, and the idea that it will not is not pessimistic.

There is no future, nor should there be any, there is simply nothing to miss, there is only now and no shortage thereof. All that is left is to rejoice while we breath and thank God for this opportunity.

I stand corrected.

It's obviously not just conservatives.

I've got to say that it does sound a tad fanciful for Flannery to assume mankind is approaching some sort of fulfilling zenith of connectedness - disconnectedness, more likely.

I mean, let's get real here as far as technology is concerned....good old self-sufficient Western man is reduced to helplessness - is almost totally incapacitated if the power goes out.

And what does connectedness in the this age of marvels denote? It certainly isn't in evidence in general society where local communities have become extinct. We sit chatting on the net and yet we don't know our neighbours - chances are that we don't have any local shops anymore. We travel through our environment encased in capsules for the most part - where is the connectedness in that?

I'd like to ask Mr Flannery how he came to his amazing conclusion. What's changed? Has man suddenly stopped squabbling over territory and resources?

Just because man has developed the technology to allow him to communicate at will doesn't mean he has learned the art of humility or cultivated the virtues of restraint, generosity, tolerance and forgiveness.

Flannery is a New World Order nutter.There will be no democracy but decisions made on our behalf by the scientific/banking intelligencia ie, people of his ilk.It is called fascism.

Arjay,
"Flannery is a New world Order nutter" Spot on!

When he mentions 'We' in the quotes I gave, he includes himself in the governing body. The rest will be the worker ants who will do as we are told. After all they will regulate us. They are the Intelligencia.

Better improve on his predictions about AGW. I recall something about permanent drought, cities running out of water and maybe he said something about dramatic sea levels rising. Or was that one of his alarmist mates. Did not Gore predict there would be no Artic ice by 2013 and kids in UK would not know what snow was.

Best read the quotes again. Did he say super-organism or super-orgasm?

so funny to see the obvious stupidty of outcomes of those who hold to the evolution faith. Mr Flannery is one of the best adverts for creation showing the ridiculous faith that is needed to embrace evolution dogma.

Again we see the faith of evolution being used to explain racism

http://www.couriermail.com.au/entertainment/weird/evolution-of-prejudice-study-reveals-racism-in-monkeys/story-e6frep26-1226036793281

So funny to see these 'scientist' conjure up lies and claim it is science.

Bugsy,
I do like the one big happy family idea, I just don't believe there's any evidence for it, quite the opposite. To continue with Forrest's analogy, if we don't like the idea of the "Borgian" superorganism, presumably the "United Federation of Planets" is desirable (the UFP is not just the would-be intelligence of one planet, but of a federation!)? In which case we should observe that the Federation is a meritocracy and has done away with money. We should also note that the Federation is culturally rich and highly tolerant. Apropos of that, please note what I said above: "In the kind of world Marx envisioned, one not driven by economic rationalism and commodification, genuine cultural and national distinctiveness would logically undergo a rebirth".

So long as we retain our system of aristocracy, there's no hope of our becoming a superorganism, more likely a super disease.

And unlike my conservative chums here, I do think we have a problem.

Forrest Gumpp,
I meant to say above that I did get your science fiction conflation, and you even got the soundtrack down pat! But that's what got be going; it seemed (at a glance) like a great way to send up poor old Marx, this time to conflate him with Flannery's hairbrained ideas.
I am humbled.

Full Marx Squeers!

That last post of mine was a cross-post, but I trust not too cross. (I had written it before I saw your re-read acknowledgement, but having polished it to 350 words I was damned if I was going to waste it!) Anyone can misread a post. I, for one, momentarily misread Poirot's post as "I've got to say that it does sound a tad fanciful for Flannery to assume mankind is approaching some sort of fulfilling zenith of correctedness - disconnectedness, more likely." Now why would I have ever thought that? Correctedness. Dear, dear. Nearly enough silly sausages for a virtuous barbecue!




Bugsy says, with reference to Banjo's opening post quotes and in response to my questioning of his/her questioning of Banjo's having watched the video:

"... I would have thought it would be obvious!
Selective , out of context quotes that just happen
to exactly match selective, out of context quotes
from both Andrew Bolts blog ... and Tim Blair's
blog at the Daily Telegraph."

If this proves anything, it is that neither Banjo nor I read these two blogsters. Neither of us recognised the origin of Flannery's words. More to the point, however, is that we must all question why Flannery was effectively quoting them! Are they all, unbeknown to us lesser mortals, singing from the same hymn book?

I, for my part, must confess to not only having not read Bolt or Blair, but to a faith-based assessment of Flannery's words. I had faith Banjo had quoted accurately from the video (never having watched it myself), and I was right, with Bugsy standing as witness to the efficacy of that act of faith. Now don't nobody tell me Bugsy didn't watch it neither!

Perhaps we can agree Tim Flannery is the Man who fell to Earth, that he is really here to steal our water for his android mates who are off the planet, and that he has no idea as to the duplicity of globalized corporatism.



Why don't people take me more seriously?

Just thinking again that this assumption of a super-organism, connected and in harmony with all its parts is really a Western-centric point of view.

According to Jessica Williams in her book "50 Facts that Should Change the World", published last decade, 70 percent of the world's population have never heard a dial tone. At the time of the book's publication there were probably 600 million internet users in the world, nearly all of them in industrialised countries.
According to Jessica, in Africa less than one percent of its 800 million people had a computer. Only one in four people owned a radio and one in forty a telephone.

"We will be regulating intelligence for the planet"

....mmmm sounds a little too Orwellian for my liking - in fact, just a ramping up of the globalised paradigm already installed quite successfully throughout the developing world.

It seems to height of arrogance to conclude that man has it all stitched up just because the more fortunate of the species have fashioned a system of swift communication and knowledge dissemination.

Someone once said that despite man's innovations, when the earth shrugs all is in ruin. We should head that lesson - and we only have to look at Japan's current plight to see that it is true

How often do I lament my lack of editing skills? - very often : )

That last sentence should begin.....We should "heed" that lesson....

"So funny to see these 'scientist' conjure up lies and claim it is science"......Iam not going to say a word:)

LEAP

And you two across the road! Its more than sarcasm:) private message:)

Members Not apply!

Please continue.

Squeers
What is "neoliberalism", pray?

I had thought it was a species of liberalism, but obviously it includes government officials appointed to promote government schemes of government control of production based on government propaganda.

Peter Hume: "What is "neoliberalism", pray?"

Well Peter, you set me a difficult task; do I explain the word in the nominal pejorative sense I tend to couch it in (which you ought to know so well by now), or do I elaborate?
We can surely dispense with the "neo", except to say it indicates the period of socialist or welfare-capitalism--the prevailing tendency postwar until its gradual erosion from the early eighties on. Less than 50 years then between classical and neoclassical political economy.
You will of course immediately object that we've never had true free markets, nevertheless I didn't invent these terms and they don't indicate anything untinctured, but rather prevailing tendencies towards privatisation, towards capitalism in a word, or if you prefer the standard euphemisms, the "free market", "free enterprise", "market society" etc, etc.
Of course neoliberalism also boasts a pseudo-philosophy of individualism, famously espoused by Margaret Thatcher; that there is no such thing as society, only individuals and families. Neoliberalism transcends such quaint homilies and neoliberal families today also pay homage to corporations.
There are differences in usage (of liberalism), say between Britain and the US, but the core values are the same and tantamount to social anarchy, or again at least nominally.
Ostensibly, true liberalism is akin to pre-Hobbesian survival of the fittest, a spurious kind of pseudo-Nietzschean realm of green-blooded individualism (bloody Romulens!).
In reality it's a craven form of materialistic opportunism that, if successful, goes on to employ all and any means to secure its ill-gotten stash.
Neoliberalism in the modern world is non sequitur since it makes its fortune from the commodified masses it despises, of whom it is of course a greasy member: narcissistic. Moreover it secures its wealth via social judiciaries, standing armies, the church (it's nothing if not pious) and other social securities it parasitises while feigning to despise them.
(Neo)liberalism has also had the dubious distinction to have presided over the two greatest financial crises in history, the Great Slump and the GFC.
They remain supercilious and uncontrite..

Apart from these small matters, "it's all good" as they say.

Looks like a string of mispresentation and abuse to me.

Which part is the actual definition that the supposed neoliberals actually agree with?

On the contrary, Peter. This is a fair assessment of liberalism. What part do you disagree with?

Why is it so hard for some to understand that Tim Flannery's approach is not unique or crazy? It doesn't refer only to climate change, nor to any particular topic. A global consciousness includes everything. Millions of sane and influential people on this planet understand that we are all one, that everything around us, our whole galaxy and its contents, originated in star stuff from one of an infinite number of big bangs. It makes no sense to fight against ourselves or those who try to lead us out of harm's way. That's the equivalent of drinking poison, smoking or taking drugs, and killing the nurses and doctors. Our only hope of peaceful, healthy, coexistence in balance with nature, which is us too (our very breath is water) is to live the principle of sharing and caring and overcome our fear of difference that prompts the need to dominate. It seems it will be a long time to the tipping point, but we may be surprised how close it is if we each do the little we can as long as we can, holding up our candles in the night, "you in your small corner, and I in mine".

I agree with your sentiments, Polly Flinders--fine words. But the reality is the world is divided as never before between rich and poor and Flannery is on record as supporting the "competitive" way in which the human world is currently arranged, notwithstanding that the game is insuperably stacked against the impoverished at home and especially abroad. Until Flannery says something to make me feel otherwise, I see him as just another instrumental stooge of the state. Instrumental reason has no conscience.