If you could instantly master any skill, what would it be and why?

If there is one occupation or skill set I wish I could master instantaneously, it is that required to be an underwater archaeologist.

Yes, I know your next question – ‘what the hell is that?’ Don’t archaeologists, like Indiana Jones, dig up the artefacts of ancient civilisations, fight off indigenous peoples and treasure hunters, and avoid being consumed by demonic spirits emerging from the pyramids?

Underwater archaeology opens up a whole new world, not just composed of famous shipwrecks such as the Titanic.

The Titanic sinking was a devastating loss, to be sure. No one is minimising the loss of life and destruction accompanying that incident. Immortalised by the 1997 Steven Spielberg blockbuster, and the topic of countless documentaries, the Titanic shipwreck has come to overshadow the vast area of underwater exploration and archaeology.

Each shipwreck is a time capsule – revealing details about its place in the maritime traffic and the connections between the societies joined by that trade. Consider, for instance, the SS Antilla.

Launched in 1939, the SS Antilla was a German cargo ship, intended to carry trade between Germany and the Caribbean. In July 1939, she left Hamburg on her maiden voyage. That journey, and her subsequent journey through the Caribbean, would prove to be fateful – World War 2 began in September of that year.

Unable to reach German ports, or the port of any nation allied to Nazi Germany, she headed for Dutch-controlled Curaçao, eventually docking in Aruba. Unfortunately for her crew, Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. The Dutch were now a hostile power. They had been monitoring the movement of German commercial and military ships prior to the arrival of the SS Antilla.

The Dutch approached the German ship, off the coast of Aruba. The captain of the SS Antilla, confronted by the enemy and with no prospect of outside assistance, decided to scuttle the ship.

The ship sank to the depths of the ocean in May 1940. Today, the shipwreck is a maritime tourist attraction. You may scuba dive to view the wreckage, because it is quite accessible. The Antilla helps to remind us that while we think of World War 2 as a European event, its battles and repercussions extended around the globe. Competing European powers had their eyes on the Caribbean and its resources.

There is also another aspect we need to remember about shipwrecks, including the Antilla. It is the remarkable resilience of life. Marine animals and ecosystems, while reeling from the direct impact of a sinking ship, display a remarkable ability to recuperate and even use the bare skeleton of the sunken ship as a refuge.

Not only are shipwrecks a capsule of cultural history, they quickly become a part of the marine life adapting to its presence. Corals and sea sponges have made their homes in the wreckage. Many species of fish, sea turtles and eels make their way through the sunken ship. Life continues to evolve in unexpected ways. An underwater ecosystem thrives, colonised by numerous marine organisms.

It is not just shipwrecks, and submerged airplanes, that provide artefact-materials for underwater archaeologists to uncover and study. Undersea cave systems are being explored, and more is being understood about how life can survive in extreme conditions.

Situated off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, is the Hoyo Negro (black hole) underwater cave system. A vast subterranean domain, it is a relic of the ice ages. What remarkable discoveries lie there, waiting to be uncovered? How much more can we uncover about the geological history of the Late Pleistocene period?

Rather than colonising other planets, let’s devote our energies to exploring and understanding our own planet.

Do you think humans will ever colonize Mars? What would life there actually look like?

Even if we have the technology to colonise Mars, we shouldn’t. Colonisation would lead to a planetary catastrophe; let’s confront the ecological crisis on Earth, and implement solutions which will improve and prolong the life of our species, and all the other life forms on Earth, that make up our biosphere.

The impulse to colonise Mars originates from legitimate concerns. Human induced climate change, the extinction of numerous species and their habitats, and the discovery of the interconnectedness of life on Earth makes us wonder if it would not be better to simply relocate to another planet to continue our existence as Homo sapiens.

Those concerns are perfectly valid – the proposed solution is an even more catastrophic response, based on cultural pessimism. Mars is an appealing candidate for terraforming – the latter being the buzzword for changing the inhospitable conditions on Mars to make them accommodating for human life. This presents an immediate question; if we can reshape Mars to look more like Earth, then why cannot we change our economic and ecological practices on our current planet to make it more like Earth?

In this connection, I would like to share a comment by an Australian federal politician from 2025, which succinctly encapsulates why the mentality of colonisation would inevitably lead to disaster. Do not get me wrong, I do not normally follow the statements of Australian politicians. They are largely a spineless, snivelling opportunistic lot. But occasionally they make comments which indicate their depraved, demoralised and cowardly ideology.

Sussan Ley, who was apparently the nonentity leading a political party of equally insignificant nonentities, made a comment that Elon Musk’s efforts to explore and colonise Mars are akin to the First Fleet, the initial British conquistador foray into what became Australia. The First Fleet, Ley intoned, did not set out to destroy anyone, and neither does Musk’s technological initiatives to explore space, and eventually colonise Mars.

It is clear that Ley has no understanding of Australian history, nor space exploration, nor Musk’s billionaire fantasies of astronomical conquest. Her comment clearly flies in the face of historical reality; the British deliberately set out to destroy the indigenous peoples of Australia. Likening the frontier wars to the proposed colonisation of Mars is reviving the myth of terra nullius, the fiction that Australia was uninhabited prior to the arrival of the Europeans.

Mars is uninhabited, you say, and that is true. But to colonise a territory involves destroying and reshaping what is already there. Mars, long the subject of science fiction writers, is not inhabited by little green men, nor are its ‘canals’ full of water. It was erroneously believed, from the late 1870s onwards, that Mars had canals of water, an observation first proposed by astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli. That belief was definitely overthrown many decades later.

Colonisation has never been a simple matter of packing up and relocating to an empty space, much like we see on television. The coloniser actively re-engineers and reshapes the environment they intend to secure and occupy, no matter how empty it might be. We are only now beginning to understand Martian geology, and the vast mountains, valleys and craters that predominate the landscape of that planet.

Mars definitely has vast amounts of water ice, both at the polar caps and beneath the surface. That’s convenient – obviously we need water for agriculture, food production and cleaning. How will those water reserves be extracted and purified? What about sewage treatment, and the risk of water-borne diseases? What about irrigation? Just those questions are enough to make us realise just how impactful any changes to the Martian environment and atmosphere would have to be to provide conditions hospitable to life.

Any attempt at Martian colonisation would be subjected to the private profit demands of the current billionaire space race. The tech bro giants – Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Richard Branson – want to inflate their already swollen egos by achieving ever-more headline-grabbing exploits in space. Egomania of cosmic proportions has already overtaken the drive to explore space for educational purposes, answering the big scientific questions regarding the cosmos.

The collective wealth of the billionaire parasites could be funding solutions to the problems of ecological destruction. They could devote their considerable financial resources to fighting the loss of biodiversity, supporting renewable energy technologies, reducing our dependence on environmentally destructive fossil fuels, and combating the spread of infectious diseases. The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the need to have an internationally coordinated response to medical threats, because viruses do not stop at borders.

However, we are being encouraged to become cheerleading bystanders to a billionaire space race which only parasitises the scientific community’s knowledge capital. The billionaires are basically leeching off the astronomical fraternity.

When Juan Posadas, Argentine Trotskyist militant and union organiser, made some offhand comments about space exploration and humanity settling on other planets, he was ridiculed as an example of an eccentric, ideologically narrow minded militant indulging cosmic fantasies – Trots in space was the expression.

Whether he deserved to be ridiculed for his flights of fancy regarding extraterrestrial life, I do not know. He died in 1981, so he is not here to defend himself. What I do know is that fantasising about other planets is not confined to the writings of Posadas. An even loonier delusion is now being promoted by the financial-technological-algorithmic complex.

The Washington Post, in 2018, published a fawning series called Companies in the Cosmos. Extolling the virtues of corporate space travel, the writers were advocating that private companies now take the lead in space exploration. Are we to become passive spectators as dysfunctional corporations reproduce their maladaptive consumerism on other planets?

Rather than dreaming about Martian colonisation, let’s focus our energies on reviving and preserving life on Earth. David Attenborough, the great nature documentary maker, said as much in his 2025 work Ocean.

Making the case for hope, he said that over his long lifetime, he has seen species brought back from the brink of extinction due to collective action and political will. Creating scenarios for Martian takeover only distracts us from the urgent task of fixing our own planet. Colonial forays into Martian territory only reproduce the consumerist ideology underpinning the economic practices harming the Earth’s biosphere.

What notable things happened today?

It would be easy to answer this question by simply opening Google or Wikipedia and looking up serious news sources about current political or economic issues. They are notable events in the sense of having a macro impact, influencing world events. On the other hand, I am not so egotistical as to think anyone would be interested in the minutiae of my daily life.

Getting up and enjoying a sunshiny day, plus a cup of coffee, is more than enough achievement for me. In this day and age of social media sensationalism, everyone wants to accrue attention to themselves. Indeed, attention has become a commodity to be monetised. The attentional oligarchy is now a fact of life for most of us in Australia, and throughout the Anglophone world.

However, asking about notable happenings is quite interesting, and opens up a huge range of possibilities.

In my last article, I wrote about a particularly important notable happening – the FIFA World Cup tournament. It is ongoing at the time of writing. I made the point that while the atmosphere of the football cup is celebratory, encouraging crossnational sentiment of solidarity, the tournament is being hit by numerous obstacles.

Extortionate pricing of tickets, travel and visa restrictions on non-American teams, the decline in tourism to the US due to the overheated bombast from the Trump administration – all these factors are making FIFA 2026 a notable event, though not for the reasons intended by the World Cup organisers.

For instance, a notable event directly related to the FIFA World Cup was the denial of entry to the United States of Somali referee Omar Artan. A soccer referee since 2018, his rejection and subsequent deportation is a highlight (if you can call it that) of the vitriolic anti-immigration climate whipped up by the Trump-MAGA cult.

It is funny, in a way, to juxtapose that to a notable event from another time and era, involving a major sporting event. It was easier for Jesse Owens, African American athlete, to enter Nazi Germany for the 1936 Berlin Olympics than for soccer referee Omar Artan to enter the United States for FIFA 2026.

The old saying ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same,’ has never been more applicable.

If you had to change your name, what would your new name be?

My name, according to my fellow Anglo Australians, is so incredibly difficult to pronounce, so complex and horrifyingly complicated, it needs changing. Apparently I have to Anglicise my name to make it ‘easier’ for the lazy tongues and marshmallow brains of Anglo Australians to pronounce.

Since my school days, when other kids would stand there looking at me befuddled when hearing my name, to fellow coworkers who loudly expressed that they will never be able to say my name, I have resisted the tide towards monocultural Anglicisation.

I have written previously about why it is important to pronounce foreign names correctly. My name is part and parcel of my identity. It forms the key to my background and ethnicity. It has only been complex and ‘difficult’ to those whose brain power could not even light a candle.

In a multicultural society such as Australia, we all must make the effort to understand each other. Polynesians, Hungarians, Lebanese, Indians, Chinese, Sri Lankans – all of us intermixing requires that we respect each other and learn each other’s names.

In a previous workplace of mine, I came across a particular hardware engineer called Eric. That is a good strong name, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, he was Chinese, I think from Hong Kong originally. One day, as we were talking, I asked him for his name. He told me ‘Eric’. I said no, what is your birth name. He said Puyi.

From that day onwards, I never called him ‘Eric’ ever again. He was Puyi.

Perhaps I should change my name to something more friendlier and romantic, in this day and age of social media and the internet. How about – the Avenging Flamethrower of Uzbekistan?

If you want me to change my name, I will on one condition. I will award you a trophy, to honour your commitment to a monocultural Australia. You will have the Cup to Unite the Nation Trophy, emblazoned with that acronym which accurately describes your position.

I completely understand why people decide to change their name. The birth name no longer reflects the person you are; Cassius Clay underwent a political and psychological awakening when he became Muhammad Ali. Malcolm Little wanted to repudiate the identity bequeathed to him by the slave owners of his ancestors; thus becoming Malcolm X.

In Australia, the social and cultural landscape is dominated by the majoritarian Anglo-Saxon identity. Let’s understand a particular point here; I am supposed to use the term Anglo-Celtic, because that description is more inclusive. It may be more inclusive, but it disguises an underlying deception. For decades the Irish Celtic component has had to confront discrimination and exclusion, fighting to find acceptance among the Anglo-Saxon Australo-British elite.

If you wish to use the term Anglo-Celtic, be my guest. But do not allow that usage to obscure the dark history of the exclusion of Irish Celtic identity in forming the notion of a British Isles.

People from non-English speaking background (NESB) nations have had to make their mark in every aspect of Australian life, and still have to prove their commitment to a unified Australian-ness. Becoming Australian does not mean abandoning your ethnic heritage. Our names are an important component of our individual identity and also a collective identity and culture.

There is another compelling reason why I wish to keep my current name. William Saroyan (1908 – 1981), American playwright of Armenian origin, wrote about the resilience of the Armenians throughout the generations. We have had to fight to preserve our identity, which involves our cultural heritage and our names. Despite tremendous hardships and appalling catastrophes, we have survived and flourished.

He said it best here:

I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose history is ended, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, whose literature is unread, whose music is unheard, whose prayers are no longer uttered. Go ahead, destroy this race. Let us say that it is again 1915. There is war in the world. Destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them from their homes into the desert. Let them have neither bread nor water. Burn their houses and their churches. See if they will not live again. See if they will not laugh again. See if the race will not live again when two of them meet in a beer parlor, twenty years after, and laugh, and speak in their tongue. Go ahead, see if you can do anything about it. See if you can stop them from mocking the big ideas of the world, you sons of bitches, a couple of Armenians talking in the world, go ahead and try to destroy them.

No, I am not imputing genocidal intent in the hearts and minds of every Anglo Australian – though perhaps we should bear in mind what the indigenous peoples think about the genocidal frontier wars on this continent. I am pointing out that keeping my name in its current state is just one small part I can play in keeping the Armenian cultural heritage alive.

How do you know when it’s time to unplug? What do you do to make it happen?

Social media is fantastic for sharing information, for keeping in contact with people geographically distant, and for venting occasionally. It is not an electronic leash tying you down for every minute of the day. It is perfectly fine to simply say – enough. Put the mobile device down, go for a walk, mix with people, take up hobbies, sing, dance, write in a journal – do whatever it is that makes you feel human again.

Let’s start with a confession. The first time I admitted that I have the following problem, my friend almost fell out of their chair in shock. Are you ready? This is going to be absolutely stupefying to you, the readers. Ok, here it is.

I do not have a TikTok account. I have never had a TikTok account, and I probably never will.

I will give you a minute to recover from this shocking turn of events. Yes I am familiar with TikTok reels, and occasionally I watch some content. But I am not a TikTok user. It is easy for me to let it go, and do something else.

I am a writer, primarily, and I wish to create longform articles. Well, I say longform articles; for me, 800 words is a practical and achievable target. I enjoy keeping the literary essay alive. I think readers get more out of an essay, rather than a TikTok video. The latter provides an immediate hit, instant gratification. I prefer to concentrate on thoughtful discussion and explore deeper sociological and historical subjects.

What do I have against TikTok? Absolutely nothing. If that platform suits you, please enjoy.

My disagreement with social media is not the technology itself, it is the overwhelming commercialisation of that medium. Subjecting every media platform to the profit motive is the underlying problem of modern capitalist society. We have become slaves to the algorithm. Actually, we have become ensnared by the data-collecting corporations that own and control the algorithm.

It is one thing to make meaningful connections, share common experiences and perspectives on social media. It is quite another to make content for viral sensationalism. The tech giants that own the social media outlets have constructed a giant digital panopticon, a network of data-gathering – what in the days of the Cold War we used to accuse Communist governments of doing; mass surveillance.

If being a content creator on TikTok takes your fancy, then I can only wish you happiness and fulfilment in that endeavour. When I see that TikTok sponsoring a conference by the Canadian climate-change denying MAGA equivalent Canada Strong and Free Network, I have to speak up.

No, I am not Canadian. No, I did not attend that particular conference in Ottawa in early May. But I am concerned about the promotion of misinformation. Climate change denial is a harmful trend in the wider society, actively promoted by big energy corporations, an oligarch-funded astroturf (fake grassroots) campaign of obfuscation and deceptions.

TikTok is a profitable business, so they can sponsor whatever conferences or events they like. They did pledge to combat misinformation, repudiate climate change denial, and ensure that their platform commits to ecological sustainability. By endorsing the Canadian climate change denying conference mentioned above, they have violated their own charter.

I do not think I will be plugging into TikTok anytime soon. I would much rather go for a walk on a sunny afternoon.

I am not singling out TikTok for exclusive opprobrium. A critique of the social media ecosystem is perfectly applicable to the tech giants that host our modern day platforms. Sometimes, it is the ‘old’ philosophers whose insights are most relevant to contemporary circumstances.

Jacques Ellul (1912 – 1994) was a lay theologian, philosopher, Christian anarchist and scholar. He was posthumously honoured, in 2001, by the Yad Vashem organisation for his wartime work in rescuing French Jews from the clutches of the Nazis. Why am I mentioning him here?

In 1954, Ellul made a thoroughgoing critique of the technological society, or the technique as he called it. His book on that topic was translated into English in 1964.

Ellul criticised what he saw as the blind subjugation of humankind to the totality of technological-industrial methods, the technique, taking precedence over human needs. No, he was too early to foresee mass computerisation, and he did not have any conception of the internet or algorithms. He did not oppose technology per se. However, he was warning that one day, the technology will control us, and perhaps even out-think us.

No, he was not a prophet or a doomsayer. But his words carry importance when we consider what kind of society we wish to construct. I am not endorsing everything he said, and certainly much of what he wrote is now outdated. However, unplugging from social media connectivity is necessary to maintain our mental health from the harmful influences that pervade the digital panopticon.

Not everything on social media deserves your time or reactions. It is perfectly reasonable to keep scrolling. In fact, on a nice sunny day, turn off the chime for notifications, put the mobile device down, and enjoy life in the outdoors.

How do you balance work and home life?

There is no shortage of advice on the internet and social media regarding achieving a balance between work and home life. Spending 80 hours of your week at work means you have less time for family and home life. Each person needs to set their boundaries – we must work to live, not live to work.

In an economy that prioritises profitability over human needs, it is not surprising that corporations enforce a business model requiring workers to work over 40 hours a week. There is conscionable overtime – deadline pressure, delivering results for clients, serving customers, all compel us to put in the extra hours. When 80, 90, 100 hour working weeks become the norm so the hedge fund owners of a company can make extra profits, then finding a work-life balance is hard to achieve.

When economic news comes on during the news programmes on corporate media, they immediately cover the gyrations of the stock market. Now, if you enjoy gambling on the stock market, please go for it. If you achieve wealth through the buying and selling of shares, then I say more power to you.

However, we are missing a crucial point – the stock market is not the economy. The stock market is only one tiny component of a nation’s economy. Working people, factories, industries, reducing unemployment, the affordability (or lack thereof) of basic goods and services – these make up the economy.

When economics news is on the television, it reports exclusively on the stock market. That kind of reporting only provides a false impression, one that excludes the vast majority of people from the economy.

As I wrote in 2020, let’s stop using the stock market’s volatility and never-ending gyrations as a measure of economic health. We should report on the reduction of unemployment, for instance, as an important measure of economic health.

When a person lands a job, they enter the economy as a worker, and have to make decisions about finding a work-home life balance.

A public health crisis, such as the spread of a disease or virus, renders masses of people unable to work. That has economic consequences which we cannot afford to ignore.

In Australia, I can rely on the tap water to be fit for human consumption. We have proper water filtration and testing systems in place. If we stop testing for cholera for instance, a water-borne infection, the water becomes unreliable. Indeed, it becomes a disease-bearing vector. What happens to the economy in these circumstances?

Having worked in the IT industry for the last thirty or thirty five years, I can say it is difficult to find a work-home life balance, but not impossible. As more software development companies are bought up by private equity firms, the pressure to work overly long hours – 80, 90 hours a week – increases on the workforce.

Freelancing is okay, but you have to find steady clients to guarantee a constant income stream. Putting yourself out there week after week, having to prove your competency and skill set exerts an emotional burden on your psyche.

We cannot avoid discussing the impact of AI when talking about work, especially work in the IT industry. We are now witnessing the fulfilment (well, at least partially) of the Moravec paradox.

What the hell is that?

Hans Moravec (1948 – ) an Austrian-born Canadian computer scientist, noted a paradox in 1988 regarding artificial intelligence (AI). Computers could solve mathematical equations, perform statistical analysis and play chess, but they could not wash dishes, build pipelines, fix electrical wires or dig holes in the ground for houses. So that meant that what humans found difficult, was easy for AI. What humans found easy, was difficult or virtually impossible for AI.

What does that mean for work? It means lawyers will be replaced by AI, but not electricians or plumbers. Tradespeople are not directly threatened by AI, but workers performing intellectual labour (lawyers, accountants, software developers) can be made redundant by AI.

There is an element of truth to this. However, we need to consider the following; as AI insinuates itself into every facet of our lives, the tradesperson becomes ever more reliant on AI. The car will not be driven by a robot, the car is becoming a robot. The washing machine, by incorporating AI into its operational cycle, is becoming a robot. The manual worker is being increasingly replaced by robotics.

AI is increasingly being used in medical procedures, flight control and banking/financial transactions and management. What happens to work when we outsource our thinking to machines?

Achieving a work-home life balance requires us to consider not just ourselves, but what kind of economic system in which we are living and working.

What are your favorite brands and why?

There is no single brand, or collection of brands, that I could point out as favourites. Rather than considering a brand, I try to examine the business model behind the brand. Is the product reliable? Is it built to last? Does it live up to expectations?

Let’s start with a confession – I am a grizzled, cynical IT veteran. Having worked in software companies for the last 35 years, my experience necessarily colours my view about brands. I do not know anything about textiles, food products, or furniture companies. However, I am very familiar with IT as a service, and have delivered projects for companies transitioning from a manually-based environment to a computer-reliant organisation.

If I had to single out a brand in the IT industry which I will miss, it is the search engine Ask Jeeves. What the hell is that, you ask?

In 1997, when Google was still just an experimental idea of a search engine, and we all relied on Yahoo or AltaVista to carry out internet searches, Ask Jeeves was launched. A conversational-based search engine, you could ask anything you liked. From ‘what are the best sites to visit in Italy?’ to ‘What is the capital of Mali?’, the Ask Jeeves search engine would answer your query instantly.

This was in the days prior to the behemoth of Google and its market dominance. What on earth is Jeeves? The latter was a fictional character, a valet, from the novels of P G Wodehouse. Jeeves, the loyal valet, would attend to the needs and requests of his master. Taking this character as a brand, Jeeves became updated to the internet world.

The search engine as a conversational helper – in the era before ChatGPT and generalised AI – was a master stroke. Taking a character from novels written in the pre-1915 era, and making it accessible to a modern audience, was a brilliant ploy of branding. Ask Jeeves became, if not a household name, the epitome of a manservant.

It made the search engine personable, a likeable helpful assistant in your life.

Sadly, Ask Jeeves is no more. The parent company, earlier this month, decided to discontinue the Ask Jeeves service. After some 29 or 30 years, Ask Jeeves has retired. Ironically, conversational search engines are considered marketable assets and the way of the future. Gemini AI and ChatGPT are modern day incarnations of the famous search valet.

I have used Google a billion times over the years, but I will never forget the humble and effective Ask Jeeves.

Let’s step outside of the IT realm, and examine the real world for a moment.

If there is a prolonged exercise in branding, or more specifically rebranding, in Australia, it is that of soccer clubs. What do I mean? Numerous soccer clubs (yes, they are called football clubs overseas) began their lives from the multiple ethnic communities that populate Australia. For instance, Marconi, in southwest Sydney, began its life from Italian Australians; Hungarians, Croatians, Serbians – each group founded a soccer club.

Soccer languished for a long time as a secondary cousin to the main Australian football code, the rugby league and the Australian Rules Football (AFL). We were told by the sporting authorities that to make soccer a truly national sport, its ethnic image and origins had to be discarded.

I understand the need for integration; commercial sports is very good at rebranding. No longer are soccer clubs seen as ‘ethnic holdouts’, separate and distinct from the wider Australian society. Australians from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) had to fit into the majority Australian society.

Removing the ‘ethnic’ branding of Australian soccer has taken decades, and the major political parties have jumped onto the bandwagon. The Socceroos, the national soccer team, was cheered on by the ultraconservative former Prime Minister John Howard, of all people. The quintessential Anglo-Celtic political figure finally accepted that soccer was not a narrow ‘ethnic’ preoccupation, but a national sport.

Taking the rebranding – some would say cultural homogenisation – of Australian soccer at face value, I would like to point out a glaring exception. There is one soccer club, with a strong presence in Australia, that has failed to shed its ultranationalist ‘ethnic’ image, with its fans engaging in riotous, racially motivated violence in the streets. The fans of this particular club have not abandoned their thuggish antisocial behaviour.

I am referring to the fans of the Maccabi Tel Aviv FC, a club with stridently Israeli ultranationalist fans. Known to engage in racist chants and attacks against Arabs – it is difficult to interpret their repeated chanting ‘death to Arabs’ as anything but a call to racial violence – this club has failed to shed its ethnic nationalist particularism.

Fans of this club have failed to respect multiculturalism, and refused to integrate into the peaceful way of life. The rebranding of Australian soccer from an ethnic nationalist stronghold into a sport everyone can enjoy has obviously not convinced the ultra fans of this club.

Rather than select specific brands, it is more important to choose reliability and authenticity. Not all business models deserve our attention or loyalty.

When do you feel most productive?

There are obvious answers to the question above. Getting a good night’s sleep, waking up refreshed the next morning, full of energy and vigour, makes for a good start to a productive day. Looking after your physical and mental health, maintaining a healthy lifestyle – all these things are necessary to be productive, no matter what profession you are employed in, or activity you engage in.

Let’s step away from the basic idea that writing can be measured by the number of words you write. Being physically and mentally healthy is a great beginning, and if you hammer out ten thousand words in one day, more power to you. I have a different understanding of being productive, one that is not easily quantifiable in numbers of words written, or articles published.

It is most productive when exposing the systematic deceptions and lies deployed by imperialist governments to manufacture consent for overseas wars. No, I am not suggesting that I have a direct wifi connection to the ultimate truth. No, I am not an expert on every topic under the sun.

It is nevertheless necessary, and productive, to counter the lies and propaganda deceptions of the rich and powerful, to expose the agendas behind their calculated language.

In the latest flare up of conflict between the US-Israeli axis and Iran, it is noteworthy to examine how the nation of Iran is portrayed in our Anglophone corporate media. Iran is routinely depicted as a problem nation, a menace to be confronted, a rogue element that is constantly obstructing peaceful resolution and development in West Asia.

Indeed, most nations in the West Asian/Middle Eastern region are portrayed as problem nations, entangled in seemingly intractable conflicts, places where ancient hatreds between Jews and Muslims play out their inevitably destructive psychopathologies.

Iran, a country with which I have no direct connection, is an ancient civilisation. It has had numerous empires, such as the Achaemenid, which developed their economic and cultural influence over the centuries. That empire, which reached its height in the sixth century BCE, was just as geographically large and culturally diverse as the Roman.

Iran was invaded by numerous foreign conquerors – Greek/Macedonian, Arabs, Mongols, Turks – Persians regard the rule of Alexander the Great as a time of cultural darkness and repression.

In the Anglophone nations, we only hear about Iran in the context of mad mullahs, sanctions, nuclear brinkmanship, and oil chokeholds. All these are important, but they contribute to a picture of Iranians as a telegenic soap opera villains, rather than a civilisation with continuity and shared identity.

It is productive to explore and understand other nations, not as targets of regime change, but as countries with civilisational cultures in their own right.

In the early 1990s, with the dissolution of the Soviet bloc, American political scientist the late Samuel Huntington, postulated his now famous ‘clash of civilisations’ thesis. He proposed that with the withdrawal of socialism, there would be renewed civilisational conflict, rival power blocs vying for international supremacy.

I will not go into a critique of the clash of civilisations claim here, because many other writers have already done so. However, there is a connection with Iran here, which I think is a productive line of enquiry.

In 1997, Tehran provided a response to the clash of civilisations thesis. Then president Mohammad Khatami advocated a dialogue among civilisations, an international instrument to promote cross-cultural cooperation and understanding. Actually this was not a new idea. In 1972, Austrian philosopher Hans Köchler, in a letter to UNESCO, advocated a dialogue among different civilisations as a method of conflict resolution, promoting international cooperation and mutual respect.

Is it not productive to take up this effort, not for the purpose of promoting the transnational cultural supremacy of one civilisation over another,but to arrive at a mutual understanding, if not complete agreement, between different nations? In fact, the clash of civilisations thesis, if widely accepted, would result in an international military conflict of rival civilisational blocs we are all working to prevent.

Whether intended by Huntington or not, the clash of civilisations thesis has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you view the world as divided between competing Orwellian transnational entities, then surely your policies and actions will bring about such a world?

The Tehran declaration, while finding supporters around the world, has failed to gain any adherence in the capitals of the major imperial powers. Perhaps it is because the financial oligarchies located in the Global North benefit from keeping the world in a state of confrontation.

Be that as it may, these are the topics that I find productive. Not in the narrow sales and marketing sense of increased web traffic, but in the issues raised. There is nothing wrong with increasing the number of views of your webpage. If you have a million followers, good luck to you. I admire your outreach.

Let us find the time to take cognisance of the issues that impact humanity’s future and ethical wellbeing. There is nothing more productive than helping to preserve life on earth.

How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?

Adapting to the public-wide medical measures imposed to control, or at least limit, the spread of Covid-19, has been challenging. However, it is definitely a goal within the capabilities of people. Humanity has been through epidemics and pandemics before, and we will continue to demonstrate resilience in difficult times.

The lockdown measures were definitely strict, and required a degree of social adjustment. I am already an over thinker, and being restricted to within a radius of only 5 kilometres travel from my home was catnip for overthinkers.

Going over various scenarios in my head, with only limited human contact, only increased my rumination. Businesses were shut, transport emptied of people, and so introspective mental activity was an obvious substitute for social life.

There are only so many podcasts you can listen to, so many YouTube videos to watch, only so many hobbies you can enjoy indoors. The wider society realised that the capitalist economy needs cleaners, baristas, retail staff, train drivers, and health care workers more than Hollywood celebrities, social media influenzers, Kardashian-type parasites and YouTubers boasting how they turned their ‘passion’ for growing zucchinis into a multimillion dollar business venture.

Managing the overthinking with some meditation, long walks in the park, and reading light-hearted topics, has been most useful. And honestly, the things I think about – do they even matter anymore?

Yes, I know, Isaac Newton went through a similar lockdown in his time, which he used to invent calculus. Putting aside the ongoing, simmering debate about whom exactly invented calculus (Gottfried Leibniz being the chief contender), not everyone is bored enough to invent a brand new mathematical method.

I think it is important, at this stage, to highlight an observation about Covid-19 – it is still with us. The pandemic is not over and done with, as the authorities would have us believe. I understand the importance of returning to a degree of normality, if you consider the capitalist socioeconomic system and its accompanying culture of individualist consumerism normal.

Diseases do not stop just because we have declared them to be over. In Australia, I can rely on the drinking water to be hygienic, because the relevant authorities continue testing the water for water-borne viruses and bacteria.

Cholera, a water-borne disease, has been largely eliminated in Australia. Should we stop testing for this disease? Should we declare that we ‘no longer live in fear’ of cholera? Of course not. This condition is still there, despite its relatively rare occurrence in Australia. Halting the testing of potable water would constitute an abdication of responsibility for public health and safety. The harmful impact of rampant cholera would not be restricted to individuals, but affect the wider community and health services.

I am surprised that nations are still underprepared for the next pandemic. Zoonotic transmission of viruses and diseases still occurs, and the danger of the next pandemic has not diminished. As we increasingly drive our way into the ecological environments of animals previously untouched by human contact, we increase our risk of zoonotic transmission.

Our agricultural production model, favouring big farms and mass produced quantities of poultry, only increases the probability of humans acquiring zoonotic diseases. Have we all forgotten the lessons of the bird flu epidemic, when different strains of the virus jumped from animals to humans? Factory farming has produced a model of production that may be efficient for the corporation’s bottom line, but which are perfect incubators for animal to human disease transmission.

The ease with which misinformation, particularly about the origins of Covid-19, has been surprising if not entirely unexpected. Various conspiracy theories about the lab-manufactured and lab-leaked synthetic origins of the disease have abounded, amplified by social media and the Trump-MAGA cult of organised ignorance.

I think the MAGA cult, in line with its ramping up of tensions with China, has politicised the lab-leak fiction, deploying it as another piece of ‘evidence’ of Beijing’s nefarious and sinister plotting. It is important to protect yourself against this virus of misinformation, which is just as deadly as the virus itself.

Lab-leak has been promoted by the ultrarightist cult, seeking to exploit vulnerable and marginalised communities, channeling their disaffection into a generalised ‘anti-establishment’ movement. Distrust in science has increased in the Anglophone nations. Though it is worth noting that distrust in ‘big science’ does not extend to oil mining, nuclear power, or weapons testing.

Promoting the public understanding of and engagement with science is an all-important way to combat the misinformed skepticism of the Covid-19 cooker mindset. No, we must never be obnoxious or talk down to anyone. But we must be free to ruthlessly criticise their views if they recycle misinformation. Global warming denialism was, and is, being confronted by science education. Covid-19 denialism must be attacked in the same way.

The lockdown was lifted years ago, and we have all gotten on with our lives. But pandemic responses provide us with a unique opportunity to learn and be better prepared next time.

Which aspects do you think makes a person unique?

Rather than make a list of all the features of a person which makes then unique – personality, values, beliefs, cultural background, family upbringing and so on – let’s approach this question with a basic observation. One way we can see what makes an individual unique is their interactions with other individuals. Our uniqueness is manifested when we interact with our fellow individuals.

We each have a brain, but possessing a brain is not enough to make a mind. Minds emerge as we learn how to interact with others around us.

The question above takes on renewed importance in this day and age of artificial intelligence. Does ChatGPT truly reflect human intelligence or sentience? Can we reproduce what makes us human in the form of computer intelligence? Is there a ghost in the machine? I deliberately use the phrase ‘ghost in the machine’, because that harks back to similar debates in the 19th century about what makes us human.

Machines, along with widespread industrialisation, were a growing feature of capitalist society. The new technologies – the steam engine, the electrical cable, the railway – were revolutionising society. How did humans adapt to this changing socioeconomic structure? Along came telephones, tape recorders and Morse code. Electric communication was impacting our worlds; now we could communicate with geographically distant communities. Was this fundamentally changing our humanity?

In the 19th century, similarly to today, scientific discoveries are making us more aware of humanity’s interconnection with and dependence upon the natural world. No longer were humans the pinnacle on a ladder of creation, according to biblical cosmology. Humans were a product of natural forces, one twig on an ever-growing branching network of hominin species. Most scientists in the 1800s, such as Swiss American scientist Louis Agassiz, were staunch creationists and sought to preserve the theologically based uniqueness of humankind.

Agassiz was also a notorious racist, which besmirched his legacy.

If humans are connected with the natural ecology, does that diminish or emphasise our uniqueness? The environmental movement, which started in the 19th century, pointed out that our wellbeing is dependent on a healthy natural environment. Animals are sentient beings, capable of experiencing pleasure and pain. So perhaps human sentience is not so unique after all, just a more developed feature that we possess on a human-animal continuum.

I understand the importance of upbringing and cultural background when evaluating a person’s uniqueness. Being from an ethnic minority inevitably impacts your personality and life experiences. Years ago, when I was about 16, I was walking around Cronulla, a beachside southern suburb of Sydney. It is easy to get there by train.

A complete stranger, passing by, yelled at me ‘piss off to Brighton’. I smiled my best fake smile, and kept walking, I had absolutely no idea why this stranger yelled at me to get out of Cronulla. Brighton is a bit further north of Cronulla, another beachside suburb. Why would I go there?

Half an hour later, a possible explanation dawned on me. Cronulla is the beach for the white Australians, whereas Brighton is the place for wogs like me – any Greek, Maltese, Hungarian, Lebanese, or Armenian like myself – should immediately relocate.

It was a valuable lesson. Not only about racism, however important that is. There was another lesson here. It is crucial to I observe the way individuals interact with each other. Their personal uniqueness, whether good or obnoxious, comes out when they socially interact with each other.

I am always exceedingly polite to waiters, baristas, cooks, cleaners, retail staff – they are not my servants, they are people doing a job. They have bills to pay, worry about their kids, all the while dealing with the public. If I see that you are courteous to me, but rude to the waiter, it makes me think, what if I was in the same position as the waiter?

No, I do not immediately break off the friendship, but it is an observation I keep with me. It indicates to me the kind of person you are, and the level of emotional intelligence you have, or do not have. It is in our interactions with others that our uniqueness shines through.

I do not want to turn this article into a thoroughgoing sociopolitical analysis of the current US-Iran conflict. This article would then become unwieldy and divert from the purpose of the original question. However, I would like to make one comparison here, which will help us answer the above question.

US Secretary of Defence Peter Hegseth (who likes to call himself the secretary of war) has made numerous blood-curdling statements about eliminating Iranians, showing no mercy, annihilating his Iranian enemies, and so on. Perhaps this overzealous bravado can be excused as just macho posturing in a time of war.

Consider the following: Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, has repeatedly stated that Tehran does not wish to harm American civilians, who have expressed their overwhelming opposition to the war instigated by the Trump administration. He specified that his nation’s quarrel is with the US military complex, and its political leadership. Hardly the statement of a sadistic, psychopathic killer.

In 2011, when Araghchi was Iran’s ambassador to Japan, he demonstrated his uniqueness by rolling up his sleeves and distributed aid to those affected by that nation’s earthquake. He could have simply ignored that event, or chosen to leave Japan in its hour of need. Yet he chose to stay and help those who suffered. He noted that Japan stepped up and helped Iran in the immediate aftermath of the 2003 Bam earthquake.

Our uniqueness emerges by interacting with others. It is by mixing with people that we realise our true selves.