Categories
politics

adaptation: fixing aussie politics

There is no final closure. No permanent certainty. No government that fixes everything forever. There are only systems that adapt well and systems that adapt badly.

Categories
cybernetics

autocratic capture: neurotic bureaucracy

Neurotic bureaucracies do not resist autocracy; they often rehearse for it.

Categories
politics

better politics

The task is not to create perfect agreement, but to maintain enough shared coherence that a society can continue solving problems without tearing itself apart.

Categories
politics

the reflecting pool reflects back

The Reflecting Pool turned green. Perhaps it is simply doing its job.

Categories
politics

australia, please…

Populists tell you they’re going to smash the system for your benefit. Funny how it still always seems to end with the rich getting richer, the government getting worse, and everyone else paying for the repairs.

Categories
Philosophy

Robodebt

The Robodebt scheme, deployed between 2015 and 2019, exemplifies how an administrative shortcut can cascade into human tragedy. By averaging annual tax data to infer fortnightly income, it raised hundreds of thousands of false debts against vulnerable Australians. The program caused profound distress, with reports linking it to suicides among those wrongly accused of owing […]