The Metaphysics of Utopia and Ideology

In this post I will discuss the Case for Voting No (No case) in the upcoming Australian referendum on the Aboriginal and Torres Straite Islander Voice ; hereafter referred to as the Voice to be conducted on October 14, 2023.  Voting in Australian elections and referenda is compulsory. The No case is premised on dangers that could manifest from the proposed inclusion of the Voice after Chapter VIII in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia. In summary, the concerns are that the Voice will be: Risky Have unknown outcomes Divisive Permanent On the basis of these fears the No case puts forward ten reasons to Vote No. I will look at each of these ten reasons as individual premises of the No case to determine the veracity of each and the degree to which each supports the conclusion that citizens ought to vote No to the Constitutional change. I will show that the reasons, as premises are in the main not justified and as a consequence the conclusion to Vote No remai...

In my previous post Towards an Understanding of CBDCs as a Threat to Freedom and Privacy I discussed concerns that libertarians on the right side of politics have with Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). I pointed out that commentators like Mr. Rand Paul and the Cato Institute argue that CBDCs are risky as they perceive these types of digital currencies to be threats to freedom, privacy and financial security. In this regard decentralised cryptocurrencies are a safer bet in their view. I for my part, in my previous post pointed out that these kinds of threats and privacy concerns also make decentralised digital cryptocurrencies, like BITCOIN risky as well.    Libertarians on the right wing of the political spectrum, as well as most of the mainstream media’s commentary on digital currencies view digital currency technology in terms of how it can benefit individual economic actors and support the capitalist financial system. In this post I will discuss how digital cur...

I will devote the topic of this post to an article entitled  Putin and Xi are the Laurel and Hardy of statesmen – but it’s no laughing matter  published in The Guardian on August 13, 2023, written by Simon Tisdall. There is so much to unpack in this commentary. Mr. Tisdall brings to our attention a litany of misdeeds resulting from the hubris of two leaders of very powerful nations, namely President Vladimir Putin of the Federation Russia (Russia) and President Xi Jinping of the Peoples Republic of China (China); both strategic rivals in the view of policy makers in the United States of America (US or USA). These two men are likened, without the laughs to the Laurel and Hardy comic duo. The language used by Mr. Tisdall is full of mockery and if directed, in its harshness at lesser mortals would cause such pain that it could be classed as a form of aggression; a form of bullying that is libelous to the point of seeking legal redress. As a piece of misinformation, the commenta...

In one of my previous posts Towards an Understanding of CBDC in the Financial System  I discussed the distinction between wholesale and retail Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC)s. I took a look at the dialogue being conducted within the European context to clarify certain misconceptions as to the nature of wholesale CBDCs; how the infrastructure that supports wholesale CDBC can be adapted to take advantage of the innovations that are happening in the digital technology. I concluded that post, with the observation that the trend around the world and in the online media is to investigate how a CBDC can be designed to benefit market economies. It appears that investigations in such economies revolve around the role of a central bank in participation with the private sector in leveraging the potential benefits of CBDC for the financial system. In this post I will review the general argument posed by those who see CBDCs as a threat to individual freedom, privacy and a form of financ...