The unedited thoughts of Rob.

Welcome to the unedited thoughts of Rob. These are my thoughts on things that concern me and things that affect me. I will add something here as when I have a thought that I think may be worth passing on. I make no apologies for what I say here, they are my thoughts and my thoughts alone.

03/12/08.

06/06/08.

It's been a little while since I wrote something, but lately I've been considering something quite large, so I'm afraid this one's a bit of an essay. I've been thinking about money.

Is money holding us back?

In many ways it is. There are many examples of things that do not get done for no other reason than they are not commercially viable. We are a nation surrounded by water, but we often have a shortage of water. Why? Simply because desalination, although well within our technical capability, is not commercially viable, it would cost more to make than they could sell it to us for. There are many people who have to go without drugs or surgery that could make their life more comfortable, but they don't get it because the money is not available for it. The resources are there and the technical know how is there, but the money isn't. This is very true in the case of drugs, the pharmaceutical companies that make these drugs have to recoup their research costs and as such drugs often cost a lot more than they do to produce.

It is true that the driving force of commerce has given us many advances in science and technology, but it is also true that the technologies that make the most money are the ones that get advanced furthest and those that don't give a financial benefit are quite often the ones that could give us the most long term advantages. You only have to look at the issue of saving the planet to see the problem, there are many ways that we can produce renewable energy sources, but the main thing holding most of these back is commercial viability. It's not that we don't have the technology or the resources, just that the cost of energy produced would be too high.

Some of you may argue that a resource has a cost. This is true. Workers need feeding and housing, but we are not short of workers, we have more than we need and we are paying a lot of people to make no real useful contribution to society. We are also paying for a vast number of people to basically administer money. Banking is a huge industry, employing a huge number of people who are making no real contribution to the future of the human race.

Could we achieve so much more without money? I think we could do a lot better than we do now. Instead of measuring things by financial cost, it could be measured by it's overall benefit to mankind. I was always amazed that I earned 3 times as much as my brother, who is an ambulance man, writing games for kids to play. Why, simply because saving lives does not generate revenue and selling games does. Football players can earn more in a week than most people earn in 2 or 3 years. Why? Simply because of the revenue they generate.

So, would we be able to work together to solve man's greatest challenges without money? Now there's a question! How could we achieve this? Whenever I talk to people about this, there is one thing that is said more often and by most people.  In one way or another they usually say "That would be fine if we lived in an ideal world". So what is stopping it from being an ideal world? The simple answer to that is, we are!

Even more worryingly, I believe that we are heading towards a point from which there is no return. Respected scientists are warning us about this, if global warming hits what they call a positive feedback loop then there is nothing we do do to stop it, many of us will die in natural disasters and the planet will be a very different place for many decades to come. So, can we work together to ensure a reasonable standard of living for everyone without it costing us the earth? If we are going to survive beyond the next century then we are going to have to, but as usual the main stumbling block is commercial viability. Saving things does not generate revenue.

To summarise, although it is not strictly true that money is holding us back, I believe that we must find a way of working together without it, because money is driving us forward, It is driving us ever faster towards our own destruction.

22/05/08.

Recently a speeding police car killed a young girl and anti police feeling is running high in the area that she lived. With good reason people are asking questions about this incident, not only did the young girl die as a result, but the police found it necessary to Taser the distraught boyfriend. This seems completely outrageous, but we must remember that these incidents are rare.

The police are human, they make mistakes. There are good police and I am sure that there are bad police, but this does not mean that having police is a bad thing. The police maintain order and although we may not always agree with the actions of some of the police, we should not take our protests too far. We can protest through the correct channels and I agree that if we find that we are not getting satisfaction through those channels then we should actively and vociferously campaign for changes, but this campaign must always be peaceful and respectful. This campaigning should be done by getting ourselves organised, through meetings and getting the press involved. We must always remember that if we demand respect we must give it.

This incident has also made me consider the bigger picture of respect within and for society, if we look at the disrespect currently being shown to people who are primarily employed to serve us, such as the police, ambulance drivers, council employees etc. we see a general breakdown in respect for these people, whilst at the same time a marked increase in apathy towards the democratic process that elects the people that ultimately run these services. There is a general feeling that voting does not make a difference and that all the politicians are the same and in it for what they can get. This general feeling is fuelled by reports in press daily.

If the democratic system fails we all lose. If it does not work, if it needs changing, then we should all get more involved, not less. We need to make sure that the system is changed or fixed and do whatever needs doing to ensure that law and order, the very basis of our society, survives. If we sit back and allow our society to crumble we are being instrumental in our own downfall. I can't remember who said it but it is true that civilisation is three square meals away from anarchy. If anarchy is what you want for your children then fine, but if it's not you have a duty to try and work within the law to get the changes needed for it to continue working for us.

The other thing on my mind this week, due to it being debated in the House of Commons, is abortion. This is very difficult subject and I am sure that no one would disagree that in an ideal world we would not need to abort children, but we do not live in an ideal world and there are many reasons why a woman may want to abort a child. I am not one of those that think that some women use abortion as a contraceptive, maybe I am being naive, but I really don't think that any woman would choose to have an abortion unless she felt it absolutely necessary.

Abortion is still not easy, in purely physical terms it can be very uncomfortable, but in emotional terms the effects can last for many years afterwards. As a man I must also be aware that it is difficult for me to judge as I can never know what it is like to be in the position that many women find themselves in. I do believe that if a woman does not want a baby then she does not deliberately get pregnant, so for whatever reason she has found herself pregnant, whether it by force, by accident or through sheer stupidity, the act of becoming pregnant is not by deliberate choice. It is difficult to know what is right and wrong in all instances. I do believe that it is a woman's body and her choice, but like many people I do find it hard to accept that a viable (and babies have survived when born at 23 weeks) life should be terminated.

If a woman does not want a child and she finds herself pregnant, then she has the right to terminate that pregnancy, but I do think that we should all work towards ensuring the age at which a foetus is aborted for non medical reasons being reduced. My opinion is that if a woman wants to abort beyond a certain lower limit (say 12 weeks) then she should also be made fully aware of what she is terminating, how developed it is and how viable it's survival is should it be born at that point and she should be told this whether she wants to know or not. If the woman is an adult she should be making an informed decision, if she does not know when she makes that decision and the facts become known to her after she has had a termination there will be an emotional cost in finding out what she has done. I am fully aware that there are no easy answers, but we should at least be trying and reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies being terminate in this country.

07/05/08.

Today I was considering just how precarious our existence is. Generally, one thinks about the fact that a natural disaster could wipe us out in no time at all, or a man made disaster whether that be an accident such as a meltdown in a nearby nuclear plant or deliberate act such as a terrorist setting off a bomb, but there is another possibility that we never seem to consider.

We as a society rely on so many people and so many systems for our survival and a breakdown in any one of these could cause a disaster way beyond anything that we normally consider, a breakdown in any one of these could bring down the whole of society in one foul swoop. Think for a while about the network of people and systems designed to bring us our power, our food, our healthcare, our communications and the money we spend, and think how a breakdown in just one of these could affect you and your family.

So when you are getting up tight because you have to wait too long in a supermarket queue just think. We live on a knife edge and a breakdown in one of a number of complex systems capable of causing a disaster that would bring down the whole of support network upon which we all rely. Scary isn't it?