What we've lost, Episode 4
Top of the list today/tonight wherever you reside: how do we measure value (in the singular)?
The value of something is multi-dimensional purely because it goes way beyond cash money.
For example, a brand of Vodka costing $3.58US per litre in West Africa sounds like amazing 'value for money'. But if having cheap access to that drug causes the sort of liver damage that shortens one's life expectancy, its real value is poisonously negative....and if in turn abuse of that substance makes a person socially dysfunctional, then the personal value turns into a macro-fiscal cost.
Another thing we've lost in the last half-century is the ability to assess value in a cultural context.
If addictive social-use drugs were very expensive - but a healthy diet packed with fresh fruit and veg was subsidised by massive State contributions to farmers - would we get Utopia?
Probably not, because the Law of Unitended Consquences would kick in - as it always does with our species. (The disaster that was the EU's Common Agricultural Policy applies as a classic example of F armer-Giles-Greed kicking in, while rising hard-drug consumption in West Africa shows pretty clearly what a natural addict the human being can be....and how he'll beg, steal and borrow to feed the habit.)
We've also lost the ability to write. 21st century sapien beings no longer write - they tap.
The age of the mobile phone for staying in touch and the laptop keyboard for wannabe scriveners is now behind us: what lies ahead is an endless stream of inane texts riddled with gifs and emojis, and the daily narcissism of pouting selfies and photo-shoot fashion fantasy. Should such distracting escapism not be enough for you, there's always tik-tok to knock forty years off your age before your very eyes, playmates.*
*This is a reference to the Liverpudlian comic Arthur Askey
But above all, what we've lost hand over fist is the freedom to complain, and the liberty to be treated as an individual with special needs that go far beyond the tokenism of wheelchair access, braille provision and self-obsessed gender definitions.
If your bank offers you app access to your deposits - and that app is rejected because it doesn't like your laptop or your phone supplier platform doesn't support it - then tough shit: we ticked the Financial Conduct boxes, and if you starve we don't care.
If your private or State pension stops being paid, it's not our job to email you and explain why: it's your job to kick ass and make a fuss. And when you do, of course, YOU MUST abide by our portal systemics.
These systemics will demand a user name, a password, a passcode, your mother's maiden name, a memorable date, a memorable place and what schools you attended.
Just to log in.
How insane is that?
But what they won't do is flag up all the service charges, investment advice fees and "management" commissions they ran up which ensure that - when you come to collect what you saved over three decades for - fails to deliver anything beyond a few income beyond a few years.
Still don't think you are in the outside super highway fast-lane to slavery? Then let me spell it out....
The four percenters don't like anyone who is 'loose cannon', radical, eccentric, old or resident in a Third World country.
What they demand is that every human being on the planet must be predictable, safe and obedient.
They will, without mercy or remorse, destroy anyone and everyone who is legendary.
Because they want to redefine our history in order to justify their future.
That sort of hero-figure isn't me and never was. I'm too old, tired and flippant to be Robin Hood...as the following bit of silly satire demonstrates:
Top boffins baffled by giant bullshit dumps in Colorado
The super-connected New World Order of settled genocidal climate change and neocon diplomatic permawar hegemony science is today in a state of flux in the State of Colorado following the sudden appearance of five giant constipated bullshit mini-mountains between Denver and Aspen.
Well, I guess they had to dump all that "Trump used Russian propaganda lies to beat Killary Hinton in 2016" excrement somewhere - once it was revealed last month to be a hoax from start to finish. So in a fit of pique, they dumped it in investigative journalist Molly Hemmingway's home State.
But seriously folks, Hemmingway's excellent piece in The Federalist about non-existent 'Russian Meddling in Potus elections' is a gripping read and well worth the attention of anyone who still thinks the US Democrat/DNC/Barack Obama axis of evil are jolly nice people really once you get to know them.
Enjoy the weekend.