Post-modern existential anxiety, or "When it all falls into place"

Let me state right from the start that this post will be self-indulgent and somewhat exhibitionistic, and I'm not really saying anything particularly new or original. The reason, both for the content and this "disclaimer" should become obvious as we move along. Right then, with that out of the way let's get to it. I had a bit of a revelation today.

Renewable energy - problem or potential

The earthquake outside Japan has got me thinking about genuinly clean and renewable energy sources. Regardless of your view on the risks of meltdowns in the Japanese powerplants, it should be obvious that nuclear powerplants aren't entirely safe - not to mention the dangers of uranium mining and disposal of nuclear waste. In addition to being environmentally hazardous, nuclear power - just as fossil power - is finite, localized and therefore controllable. As has been shown through numerous national and international conflicts, non-renewable energy is a constant potential source for geo-political strife and tension - but I believe it is also an obstacle we need to overcome if we are to achieve economic, social and ecological sustainability. There are also parallels with problems surrounding "intellectual property rights", the impact of mp3 technology on the music industry and WikiLeaks.

The dangers of polarization

Last year, The Spirit Level by Richard G. Wilkinson and Kate Pickett made some (although not enough) impact on the Swedish pre-election debates and campaigns. About 6 months earlier, Tim Jackson's report Prosperity Without Growth surfaced as well, regrettably without making almost any noise over here. In April of last year, the Gulf of Mexico was hit by disaster on a major scale with the BP oil spill, and for half a century there's been an on-going oil spill - dwarfing what happened in the Gulf - in the Niger Delta. Add to this a massive global financial crisis, two Iraq wars, the Afghanistan invasion, the Darfur genocide in Sudan and countless other catastrophies as well as a global climate change escalating out of control. At the same time, we are witnessing a severe social, economic and political polarization. This all ties together.

A sustainable labour market

The labour market, and also labour market policies, today aren't really working. In many (Western) countries, unemployment rates are rising, there is a worrying shift in demographics where it seems a shrinking work force are required to provide services (as well as taxed labour) to an growing number of retirees, increased automatization as well as relocation ("outsourcing") of jobs are removing work opportunities. At the same time, overtime is increasing (and recently the government has even suggested that it become easier to order overtime), the wage gap between low and high income jobs increases, and cheap oil - a prerequisite for much of the aformentioned automatization - seem to be becoming a thing of the past.

The Growth Dogma

Just read an article in Swedish magazine Effekt about the connection between what's happening in the Middle East and the currently dominating "growth dogma". In short, the writer suggests that world leaders are hesitant to support the people of the Middle East in their uprising, because this might lead to a severe rise in oil prices - and that rising oil prises, while being a potential problem for households, is a major problem for an economy based on eternal economic growth. Our current economy essentially runs on access to cheap oil. One question posed in the article is why the issue of growth (or rather, the critique of our current "growth dogma") is so taboo. I have some thoughts.

Making sense of Maher?

Against better judgment, I watched a clip of Bill Maher bashing Islam and Muslim men. It is a truly hateful and bigoted tirade he spews, but somewhere deep in the mess Maher actually does have a point - at least if you cut him a lot of slack.

Changing the game?

I'm getting really fed up with all of these "free market liberals" and proponents of infinite economic growth. No one likes waking up to the fact that the way we current live is fundamentally flawed, but the fact that it sucks is not a valid argument against changing our way of life.

Free seeds or Free trade?

In their urge to please the World Trade Organisation, major multinational corporations such as Monsanto and commodify everything (and anyone?) in the name of that holiest of holy, Free Trade, the Swedish government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, now wishes to impose even stricter regulation on so called "free seeds". The explicit aim, other than simply adopting policies decided in the EU, is to promote agricultural biodiversity by making it easier to sell seeds to "hobby farmers" within the European Union. It's interesting to note that the way to make things easier for "regular people" generally means "getting more restrictions", whereas to make things easier for "corporations" generally means "removing restrictions".

Alla dessa opinionsundersökningar

Roade mig lite med att kika på den senaste opinionsundersökningen från Synovate. Det ser naturligtvis inte jättekul ut för de av oss som inte vill ha fyra år till av ökade klyftor, nedskärningar i välfärdssystemen, huvudlös avreglering, obefintlig miljöpolitik och total avsaknad av globala rättviseperspektiv. Men frågan är om det egentligen är så nattsvart som borgerlig media vill få det till.

Får det vara lite heroin?

I lördags överskred vi budgeten. Då hade vi, sedan första januari, förbrukat så mycket resurser som Jorden klarar av att generera på ett år. Förra året skedde det den 25:e september, i år alltså en månad tidigare. Lite drygt en vecka tidigare deklarerade Reinfeldt att man vill minska de ekonomiska klyftorna i Sverige genom att sänka skatten för höginkomsttagarna. Ska vi ta och titta lite närmre på det här?

Hållbar arbetsmarknadspolitik

Att höstens val tycks handla om jobben är inget vågat påstående. Men frågan är inte om vi ska ha jobb eller bidrag, som alliansen vill göra gällande, utan om vilken typ av jobb vi vill se och hur vi tänker oss att de skapas. I grund och botten handlar det om synen på människan, samhället och det ekosystem som vi alla är en del av.

Gud är död, länge leve Gud?

"Gud är död" proklamerar Zarathustra i Nietzsches verk Sålunda talade Zarathustra. Den stora tragedin är att vi försöker ta Guds plats som Herre över Världen.

De onödiga, undervärderade och framtida jobben

"Jobbar vi i onödan?" är en fråga som sociologen Roland Paulsen från Uppsala universitet ställer sig i en ny bok, och som dryftas i en intervju i torsdagens SvD. Det är en intressant och tankeväckande fråga, som jag skrivit om tidigare (den gången på engelska). Enligt Paulsen har vi idag en hel del jobb som sysselsätter för många, utförs i onödan eller rentav är skadliga. Ny teknik och nya uppfinningar har gjort att vi är mer effektiva, men vi jobbar (minst) lika mycket idag som vi gjorde förr.

Difficult or just boring?

Since it's the International Women's Day, I thought I'd write something somewhat on topic. Following the discussion about subsidies for household services, it's been argued that the fact that women are the ones doing most of the cleaning and such is natural, since "they are better at it than men". A high-ranking conservative (or "liberal" as they call themselves now) politican got the question why he didn't clean up in the staircase of his building - his answer was that he didn't know how to get it properly clean, whereas a women from a cleaning company knew. He was very happy about her services, and claimed to respect her on the basis of her superior cleaning skills. This is, of course, bullshit.

Common problems - individual solutions?

Read an editorial today in Swedish morning paper DN, which so totally missed the point that my jaw dropped. The basic premise is probably correct - the low status of teachers is a problem. One of the reasons presented for this low status is that teachers are expected to perform all sorts of other, non-teaching, duties. Such as keeping track of students belongnings, mediating and coordinating bickering parents and put together special study programs. It didn't occur to whoever wrote the editorial that not only are these things lowering the status of the teaching profession, they also have a negative effect on the quality of teaching itself?

A visit to the Shadowlands

It started about two weeks ago.

I saw an ad for a PhD position which would suit me ideally, and began working on my application. Finally I had found a way away from a life of rotting away at some customer support. I would be able to become the person I'd always wanted to be. All I needed to do was produce a stellar application.

The ethical choice

A political strategy is often either considered the most economically efficient tool or the only possible alternative. Both are absurd ideas in their own ways - it is rarely true that something is the only alternative, and being the most economically efficient tool to get something done isn't necessarily the best tool. It is important to keep in mind that a political strategy is a tool or an alternative, but it is man-made and often (if not always) a matter of (more or less) deliberate choice.

Operation: Mindfuck

Recently there's been some talk (at least here in Sweden) about Facebook groups that change their names once they've reached a lot of members (DN, AB). While this might seem like a perfect example of a "non-question" and it's easy to just laugh about, I think it is actually something worth thinking about. Making fun of someone at his or her expense is of course not a nice thing, and borders on bullying. And even though I suspect that is the major reason for these things, there is another point of view as well.

Balancing an ever-increasing economic growth

Yesterday I woke up with the question "how do we balance ever-increasing growth?" in my head. I thought this was interesting, especially since it was expressed verbally in English and English isn't my native language. Not too strange though, since these are thoughts that have been flying around in my head for quite some time. I'll figure I'll take the idea and run with it, see where it leads.

Power politics

My friend Oskar made me aware of an alternative nuclear fuel a couple of days ago. Apparently thorium is a good substitute for uranium - there's a lot of it (few people seem to consider the fact that uranium is finite, and that the cost of our nuclear plants will skyrocket once we hit "Peak Uranium"), it isn't as dangerous to mine, cheaper to process and doesn't produce iffy plutonium as a convenient by-product. Not bad really. But there's a question that's rarely addressed when discussing the use of fossil and other non-renewable, non-omnipresent fuels.