In 1930, Clyde W. Tombaugh found a ninth planet in our solar system and, after a time being known as ‘Planet X’, it gained the
name Pluto. Contrary to popular belief, the planet wasn’t named after the Disney character or the nuclear element plutonium; rather the planet was named after the Roman God of the
Underworld as suggested by an 11 year old girl from England who was given £5 as a reward for her effort.
By the early 2000s, advances in the design and accuracy of astronomical instruments demonstrated to scientists that Pluto didn’t qualify as a planet as it didn’t meet
the criteria:
- It needs to be in orbit around the Sun — yes, so maybe Pluto is a planet.
- It needs to have enough gravity to pull itself into a spherical shape — Pluto…check.
- It needs to have “cleared the neighbourhood” of its orbit — Uh oh. Here’s the rule breaker. According to this, Pluto is not a planet.
Where Pluto apparently fell down is that it is located in the middle of a belt of small planet-like objects — so it hasn’t ‘cleared the neighbourhood’ of other objects.
There was considerable coverage of the downgrading of Pluto when it occurred and New Mexico in the US actually
legislated that when Pluto traverses the skies of the state of New Mexico, it is still a planet!
One of the scientists who made the declaration that Pluto didn’t make the cut as a planet was Neil deGrasse Tyson. As well as a host of scientific awards, Tyson won the (US)
People Magazine’s ‘Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive’ award in 2000 and an Emmy nomination
in 2014. Charlie Pickering recently interviewed Tyson on the ABC’s ‘
The Weekly’ and discussed some of the notoriety he gained as a part of the panel of scientists that decided that Pluto was not a planet, but a dwarf planet. There apparently were two groups of people: those that accepted the decision realising that over the 70 years since Pluto was discovered advances in technology had made a re-evaluation of the planet status warranted; while the second group had a number of issues with the decision primarily due to the letter writers learning that there were nine planets in the solar system — ranging from Mercury to Pluto — and no one had the right to change the basis of that absolute truth.
So why is
The Political Sword suddenly interested in a discussion from around 10 years ago on the status of a (dwarf) planet that is located on average 39.5 Astronomical Units (the distance from the sun to earth is one AU) from the sun? Basically — we’re not. We are interested in the discussion between Tyson and Pickering on the science behind it. While some could accept the change in status for the dwarf planet formally known as Pluto, others could send Tyson a letter 10 years later saying that they had now researched the matter for themselves, decided Tyson was correct and apologised for calling Tyson a ‘poo poo head’ some time in the noughties (the discussion starts at around 1 minutes 43 seconds into the YouTube clip linked above).
Tyson talked about the distinct difference in the way the brain works in people. Some are able to take on new facts as they are determined and others don’t seem to have that ability. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s call those that will take on board the research of others as progressives, and those that believe the facts are immutable as conservatives. The example of progressive and conservative thinking has been done to death in regard to the environment, so let’s look at the economy instead.
There is an argument that Australia, together with the rest of the developed world, is entering the post-industrial economy and experiencing the
end of capitalism. The development of the post-industrial economy is linked to the supply and availability of information. Building consumer goods, digging fossil fuels out of the ground and other activities that have sustained the Australian economy for a century are becoming, and will be part, of the ‘mix’ in the future. Australia will, however, gain a greater proportion of its national income from activities that involve the ‘sale’ of our knowledge and skills.
For example, motor vehicle manufacturers have decided that it is no longer profitable to screw their products together in Australia. While this will cause considerable grief for those who have been employed (in some cases for decades) in manufacturing Holden Commodores or Ford Falcons,
General Motors,
Ford and
Nissan will still have considerable workforces based in this country for the foreseeable future — despite the media reports. The difference is that the work performed has a greater technical and intellectual input, be it designing and testing vehicles for worldwide markets or casting items with a great deal of complexity for a number of global vehicle models.
You are reading another demonstration of the information age —
The Political Sword. This blog, along with our other site
TPS Extra, is put together by a small group of people that live somewhere between Brisbane and Melbourne using the internet, email and the very occasional phone call to co-ordinate the information and work flows that are necessary. This blog is accessible in most parts of the world, costs us very little to publish and you nothing to read. Prior to the internet, someone with very deep pockets would have had to fund the printing and distribution of this article — and even then it would have not been accessible around the world at the same time. Prior to printing, records were usually kept by monks who spent their entire lives recording history. Today, information is all around us and the storage of it is cheap.
So how is the current government handling this structural change in the Australian society and economy? Rather than accepting that coal is a fossil fuel that some suggest may soon be a ‘
stranded asset’, the government is attempting to change the law so that a large coal mine can be developed in
Central Queensland. When the newly blackshirted “Border Security’ promise to check people’s visas on the streets of Melbourne was cancelled due to
community protest, ‘our’ Prime Minister claimed they ‘should not be
demeaned’.
The current government promised to stop the boats. When it was determined by others, based on information retrieved from elsewhere in South East Asia, that the boats hadn’t really stopped as claimed, our government responded that it doesn’t comment on ‘on water’
matters and tightened independent access to the charmingly named ‘
Offshore Processing Centres’ (where processing refugees for settlement in Australian seems to be the last item on the agenda).
Australia over the years has entered into a number of trade agreements that in theory allow better access to markets and lesser trade barriers. Australia along with a number of other countries around the Pacific Rim have been negotiating a trade agreement for the past couple of years. If you are an Australian, you have no formal way to access the proposed agreement, which may contain clauses that override our national interests for corporate interests. If you are a stakeholder and live in countries including the USA,
you do.
The ALP started a process when in power of creating a world class telecommunications system across Australia that would allow all Australians to access information on the internet much faster than most can today using digital cable to each household and known as the National Broadband Network (NBN). One of the current Government’s claims before the election was that the system that was under development was more than needed. (Stop fast Internet anyone?) While the rollout of digital cable continues at a snail’s pace, a recent Senate enquiry has
determined:
The Australian people are being kept in the dark by the minister and NBN Co on the cost and rollout timeframe of the NBN.
It has been demonstrated in the past that in any period of uncertainty, those that take the lead do better.
Mark Zuckerberg has made billions in the past decade or so by providing a system (Facebook) for people to freely and easily converse with their friends and soak up information — even if the information are the problems that can only be experienced in a first world economy, such as photos of last night’s dinner. Others with a large volume of resources such as Google have tried to manufacture rivals, with limited success.
So how does our government attempt to keep pace with the change to society that we are currently experiencing? In short, they are trying to keep the genie in the bottle. This is where the discussion between Charlie Pickering and Neil Tyson at the top of this article kicks in. You may recall they discussed how some people could accept new facts and assimilate them while others couldn’t. The Abbott government seems to be of the latter mindset. Above are a couple of examples of reactions to events that in the stated views of Abbott or his ministers are inimical to Australian society. There are plenty more, such as same sex marriage, education standards, tax reform and so on.
Conservative leaders in Australian politics were not always so intent on keeping the status quo. It seems that conservative leaders from Menzies to Bjelke Petersen could analyse new information and make decisions based on the material at hand. While the ALP started the Snowy Mountains Scheme, construction continued through the 23 years of Liberal rule from 1949 to 1972. While some changes were made, the NSW Liberal premiers continued the construction of the Sydney Opera House and surprisingly Bjelke Petersen’s National Party introduced and funded rail electrification at 25Kv to the Queensland rail system. At the time 25Kv electrification was new and is better technology than the 1500v systems in New South Wales and Victoria.
Abbott is a Rhodes scholar. Despite how and why he achieved the honour, he got there. There are two possible options for his reluctance to meet and adapt to the societal norms of the 21st century: either he believes that the ‘large C’ conservative values will win him power at the next election or he genuinely is one of the people that Tyson claims can only understand the rote learning he experienced decades ago.
The last 100 plus opinion polls would suggest that his performance does not meet the expectations of the Australian community. It could be argued that opinion polls are just opinion — but those that conduct the polls have businesses to run and frequent large discrepancies from reality would quickly end the pollsters’ business operations. So it could be said that you would have to be living on another planet to bet on (large C) conservatism as a winning strategy as Abbott seems to be doing.
The other option is therefore more likely. Abbott came from nowhere to cause a hung parliament in 2010 and win the 2013 election. In the opinion of those who are of the same mindset — winners are grinners — and there is a certain amount of blindness that comes from belonging to a winning team. Abbott’s mind cannot grasp the new information in relation to burning fossil fuels; cannot fathom how the society he lives in has moved on from the ‘meat and three veges’ on the table every night for the family comprised of ‘mum, dad and the two kids’; and is kicking the can on contentious issues, such as climate change, the republic, tax reform and same sex marriage, down the road for the next parliament to deal with. Should Abbott get back in, the can will be kicked further.
While Abbott’s mindset is not unique, it is taking the ‘first mover’ advantage away from all of us especially in relation to adjusting to the new knowledge and information economy of the 21st century. That will be an ongoing problem for all of us.
What do you think?
Like those who rejected the downgrading of Pluto as a planet, 2353 shows that Abbott and his ilk refuse to accept new information. Abbott is avoiding contentious issues like marriage equality, despite opinion polls, and will continue to do so. He is avoiding economic changes, pretending that we can continue forever to just dig and sell our minerals. As 2353 concludes, that approach is not in the best interests for the future of Australia.
Come back next week when Ken will discuss ‘Another failure in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs’.
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