China plans

Tomorrow morning (Friday 1 August) I will fly to Shanghai. After five trips to the Chinese consulate I finally sorted out the painful visa process and will be spending one month running around the middle kingdom.

The primary goal of this trip is to practice speaking chinese. I wanted to spend six months there learning the language, but life always gets in the way of the best layed plans and now it’s down to one month. I also want to soak up some of the Olympics spirit (even if all the tickets are sold) and perhaps see a few new spots that I haven’t visited before — maybe the Shaolin Temple.

I have a flight out of Honk Kong on the 2nd of September, going to Singapore. The other exit option would be to skip the HK flight and instead get a bus down to Hanoi (Vietnam) or Luang Prabang (Laos). I’ll work it out closer to the time.

After that, my rough plan is to spend a few weeks in s/e asia travelling and scuba diving and then head to Battambang (Cambodia) to work on my projects there for about a month.

China usually bans blogs, so Chapter5 may have to sleep for a month. If that is the case, then I’ll continue my blogging using facebook or some other program.

UPDATE 01/09: I shouldn’t be writing an update because I should currently be on an airplane. But I missed my flight. Bloody traffic. I blame the jews. Anyway, depature has now been delayed until this Sunday 3 August.

Declare independence

The Centre for Independent Studies recently released my latest paper, which is a part of three papers in a publication called “Declaring Dependence, Declaring Independence“. I wrote the “declare independence” bit.

I have two suggestions. One is that we reform the welfare system to get rid of the $90 billion worth of tax-welfare churn (where people pay tax and receive back the same money as welfare). This can be done by means-testing all welfare payments and link the lost welfare to tax cuts.

The second (and more controversial) suggestion is to allow self-sufficent and law-abiding citizens to “declare independence” and opt out of the welfare and nanny state. They would still obey victim-laws and pay tax for infrastructure & redistribution… but they would not longer have to follow victimless-laws nor would they pay the tax that goes back to them.

These reforms would not decrease welfare for anybody… but would reduce government spending by $90 billion (removing the churn) and increase individual responsibility. I call it the “semi-welfare state”.

The AFR published an op-ed about the idea, which was reproduced by Henry Thornton at The Australian… and then Stephen Samild (a co-author) and I were interviewed on Radio National’s “Life Matters” (30 Sept).

The problem with China

Well, there is more than one problem. I just read “Will China Fail” by John Lee (who I met recently in Sydney) and found it an interesting argument for pessimism. In summary…

The economy is doing well, but there are underlying problem that should lead to a slow-down or recession at some point. When this happens it will uncover a growing underground resentment against the government that is only being hidden at moment because of high economic growth. A stagnating economy and social tensions are dangerous enough… but that may lead to an increase in nationalist posturing in line with what the military wants. This increases the chance of conflict with Taiwan or Japan… the likely targets of Chinese nationalism.

This scenario is especially dangerous if it takes 20-30 years. By that time the Chinese economy and military will be formidable, and their charm offensive may have secured them enough international support that they are seen as a genuine second world power. A China-America war could easily end up as a world war.

This outcome isn’t likely. And hopefully it is dramatically wrong. But more likely and immediate are the issues facing the Chinese economy.

Vanuatu 2008

We’ve now had five family holidays. Vanuatu (2004), Austria (2005), Mediteranian (2006), Nth Qld (2007) and back to Vanuatu (2008). This time we were celebrating dad’s 60th birthday.

It started with a visa problem. My Australian passport was with the Chinese embassy and so I was travelling on my British passport. But the airline refused to let me board because I didn’t have a return visa in my British passport. After an hour of refusals and increasingly dramatic fall-back plans (like buying a ticket to England), finally somebody got in touch with immigration who OK’ed my travel… with a bunch of warnings that it was all technically illegal. Phew.

Criticisms of spiritual journeys

In some sense, I consider myself on a spiritual journey. Maybe “life journey” is better. It’s a journey of discovery, philosophy, meaning and life. But it does NOT include an assumption of sky-fairies, aliens, witch-doctors, spirit-healing or other ancient myths.

For some reason, many people on a spiritual journey end up believing in many strange super-natural ideas. There is nothing wrong with that if it’s based on logic and not faith. But too often it is simply a matter of faith. Some people have gone on a spiritual journey away from their monotheist upbringing just to fall for the next lot of faith-peddlers who could talk fluff like a random spiritual word generator.

I also have a problem with the idea of “gurus”. It is a good thing to learn from a teacher, but ultimately each persons journey has to be personal. Teachers can be useful for a period of time, but if you don’t outgrow them then you’re not learning. All lessons need to double-checked against your own logic.

My final complaint (for today) is against spiritual certainty. People who are sure that they have all the answers to the questions of life will then stopped looking. And in my opinion, it is vitally important that people are always searching for answers. People who think they have reached the end of their spiritual journey can’t grow – they haven’t reached the end of their path; they have fallen off the path.

Fluffy philosophy

I recently read “Zen & the art of Happiness” by Chris Prentiss and also “The Pilgrimage” by Paulo Coelho, and I wasn’t very impressed. It was fluffy philosophy.

Coelho is a mixed bag. I loved “The Zahir” and I didn’t like “The alchemist”. The Pilgrimage fits in between those two. It is about Coelho’s journey on the road to Santiago — walking hundreds of kms through France & Spain – and it is a journey I would like to take some day. On the way he learns things about life.

One of Coelho’s themes is to follow your dreams. The opposite is to just accept an ordinary life of peace, tranquility, security, comfort and then death. Another theme is love, including eros (love of a partner), philos (love of friends) and agape (love of life). He makes the point that enthusiasm is how we show agape and he laments the fact that this seems to fade in some people. This is the good side of Coelho.

The other side that I have little time for is the witch-doctor element. He believes in sky-fairies, omens, spirits and fate. No reason. Just fluffy, wanky faith in religious hobgobblins.

I had a dream

I wish I could remember more of my dreams. But at least I remembered a good one while I was in Vanuatu last week (night of 23/07). This is my dream…

I was at a pier fishing with a group of friends, though I can’t remember who. I caught a small fish and had trouble taking out the hook, but eventually did. Then I hooked a big one and struggled for a while, with the fish dragging my line left and right getting in the way of other people fishing.

At one stage the fish pulled hard, and instead of letting go I jumped in the water. I was dragged sideways (away from my friends) and eventually managed to get back to the side and then drag myself on to land. And then pull in the wild angry fish. When I finally got it up on to the pier it was a huge wild pig!

The fishing line became a leash and I started walking behind the wild pig (holding it back as it tried to run) back towards my friends. But when I was nearly back I had to get past a group of people sitting at a cafe, who kept moving exactly where I wanted to go. The pig eventually barged through, but got caught on a chair. And deflated. Apparently, it was an inflatable wild angry pig that swims.

It deflated fully and I folded him up and went and told my friends — who (unsuprisingly) didn’t believe me.

Happy birthday dad

My dad turns 60 in a few days. This is very bad news because if my dad is turning 60 that means I’m just about to turn 30. Damn.

We’ve decided to combine this years family holiday with dad’s birthday celebrations, and we’re going to go over to Vanuatu (which my parents like) and look in an active volcano. Yeah. That’s right. An active volcano.

We fly out tomorrow (Friday 18 July) and will come back on Sunday 27 July. I haven’t got too many plans for this trip. I’ll do some scuba diving, excercising, meditating, reading and lounging on the beach. But no computers.

These damn computers are running my life and I need to rebel. So I’m going on computer strike for one week. For the next week I won’t be checking e-mails or this blog or facebook… so I obviously won’t be responding. You should try it some time.

Jesus was a Buddhist

Well… the title of the book was “Jesus lived in India”, but I didn’t care as much about that.

The author (Holger Kersten) believes that the Jews originally came from India, that some went back after the first Israel was taken over (about 600BC), that Jesus was educated there during his missing years (aged 12-30) and that he went back there after his near-death on the cross. Apparently, he is now burried in Srinagar, in the Kashmir region in northern India, where he was known as “Issa”.

It’s a fairly left-field story that requires just about as much faith as the Bible version. I admit there are parts of his story that make sense. But lots of theories would fit the facts just as well.

But one part of the story I did like was the suggestion that buddhist ideas influenced Jesus. Buddhists (including buddhist monks) had been travelling along the silk road for centuries, from china to egypt, and certainly passing through the levant area. There was buddhist teaching in the north egyptian city of Alexandria, where Jesus may have spent some time in his early years if the Bible is correct.

There were various Jewish sects that existed just outside mainstream Jewish life, such as the Essenes and the Nazarenes, who lived a life very similar to the buddhist life and promoted ideas very similar to buddhist ideas. It is quite believable that Jesus was influenced by these guys. Certainly, his life and teachings diverged significantly from a standard Jewish life.

The Bible is an evil book which tries to justify genocide, envy, hatred and intolerance. This is mostly true before Jesus and after Jesus, but the actual words of Jesus are strikingly different and seem to promote an entirely different religion. One that looks quite buddhist.

Reasons for Australia

When I started Chapter5 the intention was to spend much of my time outside Australia. But over the past 3.5 years my international travels have been very much “on-and-off” as I’ve ducked back to Australia several times. These are the reasons for my Chapter5 Australia-time…

Feb 05 — Just started. I had to come back from Korea to catch a different flight to Indonesia

Nov 05 — Came back for Duncan’s wedding in Tasmania

Dec 06 — Visiting family for Christmas, and learning to fly (stayed 2 months)

May 07 — Getting my recreational pilots licence (stayed 1.5 months)

Aug 07 — Stood for federal election and tutored for one day a week (stayed for 6 months)

July 08 — Dad’s 60th birthday