Poll Result

You may have noticed a poll I was running with the question:

"What's more important for a Senator?"
1. Commitment to Party 19%
2. Education history 0%
3. Prior work experience 5%
4. Critical Thinking 76%

Critical thinking was the overwhelming choice of respondents. Lucky for me that my whole professional engineering career has been developing my ability in this area for 20 years. Critical thinking is just something I do.

Critical Thinking requires skills in:

• Analysis – examining it in detail
• Thinking creatively – different perspectives and possibilities
• Problem solving – considering available information before making an appropriate decision
• Reasoning – making links between ideas and information
• Evaluating – assessing relevance and/or a context, and reliability

Critical thinking is also about:

• Open-mindedness – examine multiple points of views, including your own
• Flexibility – ability to change your point of view
• Persistence – following a line of reasoning
• Interpersonal sensitivity – respect the opinions of others
• Intercultural sensitivity – respect diversity

I have what it takes to be a sensational representative.

Climate Change Economist Nicholas Stern

Nicholas Stern - one of the most influential voices in the international debate putting the environmental issues into an economic context - was recently interviewed by Kerry O'Brien on Australian television ABCTV's 7:30 Report.

Here's a link to the full interview transcript.

One of the most interesting comments for me was the following:

"KERRY O'BRIEN: Do you believe that China has the will and the commitment now to go to Copenhagen ready to embrace reasonable targets?

NICHOLAS STERN: Yes, I do. And here's why: China is very analytical about water, very analytical about engineering, examines what's involved in growth and energy in great detail. Chinese leadership, many of them engineers, many of them from the best engineering university in the country - Chinqua. They look very carefully at what the dangers are and what can be done. And that discussion and analysis has been going on for some years now. It's remarkable how it's changed in the last two or three years in China.

And in that analysis, China recognises very clearly that they're extremely vulnerable. They're major cities are on the coast. Their major rivers rise in a few hundred snow and ice covered kilometres of the Himalayas. They know that water is already being disrupted by climate change and would likely to be much more radically disrupted by climate change. They know also, as well as recognising their vulnerability, they know that they're potential deal breakers, that if they refuse to play an important part in this story then there's unlikely to be a global deal."

I have mentioned before in previous posts the importance of having real problem solvers in parliament and in leadership. I will say this again - as an engineer I am trained to solve problems not to create them. As a possible engineering politician I believe I can contribute significantly to helping Australia on the right path.

Productivity Commission has got it wrong

I was reading through the Productivity Commission's (PC) Annual Report 07/08. In it contained some interesting views - views that I don't think are helpful in trying to deal with our society's over consumption and materialistic view of the world.

The PC seems to have the "Growth Fetish" (from Clive Hamilton's book of the same name), whereby growth at all costs is the mantra (or disease) inflicting the group.

In the PC's own words it says: "Why the emphasis on productivity growth for the future? Future income growth provides the means for dealing with emerging demographic and environmental challenges, reducing the need to forgo consumption or living standards." In the same sentence it has suggested that in order to help the environment we must consume more via income growth.

In the very first sentence of Chapter 1 the report says, "Productivity growth is important to Australia because, through income growth, it contributes to our community wellbeing." Once again we have a view that says wellbeing can ONLY be achieved via monetary means - which is a false notion.

Countless upon countless international reports have shown that "wellbeing" has little to do with monetary rewards but everything to do with sense of community connectedness, social inclusion, self-esteem, to name but three. These things reply heavily on non-monetary mechanisms. I believe in order to move toward universal wellbeing there MUST be a paradigm shift in the way we see ourselves, our connection to each other and to the world around us. No more must an inanimate object such as a pair of jeans or a car define who we are.

I believe that our government must put in place policies that enable everyone to achieve wellbeing through non-monetary means. The biggest impact I believe would be achieved through an overhaul of the advertising and marketing sector who have been telling us for decades that inanimate objects like cars, sunglasses, beverages will make us happy. This needs to end.

Refer to Previous post

My previous post - in case you didn't realise - was suppose to be read with Australia in mind. The fact that America struggles to see the big picture is also a potential flaw in this country. As a country we need to start thinking about how we fit into the "system". By "system", of course I mean the world - not just in a political sense (not even) but more so how we operate as a nation with our neighbours and other countries in mind. Some may think, "why worry about others?" It's not so much "worrying" about others e.g. I don't consult my next door neighbour about what I'm having for dinner, but I will let them know if I am going to have a large party just so they can expect a few more cars parked in the street etc....

So too it goes with countries in our region. A good neighbour will operate in a manner that considers others. What about our neighbours like, PNG, NZ, Indonesia, Pacific Islands - how do we treat them? I'm a little upset by Australian mining operations in PNG (for example). Some of the actions of mining companies are akin to having a bad guest for dinner - they arrive, accept your hospitality, eat lots, drink lots and leave you with empty glasses and dirty plates - having got what they came for. I think Australia needs to be a better neighbour, and we need to re-think how we relate and behave in our region.

Analysis and thought

I have written a couple of times about the importance of things like, systems thinking, decision making, ladders of inference, diversity, thought processes etc...One of my favourite commentators on all things Global is a fellow by the name of Joshua Cooper Ramo - author of a book entitled, "The Age of the Unthinkable". He has written a few other books (on China) but the thing I like about him is his ability to get people to think about new ways of approaching problems. My wife says I'm a "thinker" so I guess its one reason he appeals to me.

Here's some bits and pieces from an interview with Joshua published by the Huffington Post on the GFC (Global Financial Crisis). The full article can be viewed by following the link.

You've said the GFC could turn China into a superpower. How likely is that?

The Chinese have been actively building systems that are capable of surviving all kinds of shocks, and they are more suspicious of markets than we are -- they see everything as having the potential for collapse. As a result, China has developed a more resilient command-and-control economy.

Some experts say there is a fundamental difference in the way people think, are the Chinese better able to see the big picture?

It's not so much that they see it better, just that they see it differently and take in a wider range of influence and possibility. For the Chinese context is everything.

Is the inability to see context a growing problem for Americans?

Yes, I think it is. We often miss the fact that the problems or dangers we face are parts of a complete system and not just isolated blips of risk. For example, we thought we could contain the subprime crisis before we noticed our entire financial system was in trouble. We focused on removing Saddam before we understood all the forces swirling around him. Americans have a view of the world that is rooted in one of the most ancient concepts of Western thought: we believe that to understand something complex you must break it into smaller pieces. But this approach may no longer be suitable to today's world.

China now has an underground base in the South China Sea that can launch nuclear submarines without being observed from the sky. Does the U.S. fail to appreciate just how quickly new technology is answered by newer technology?

It's less about tactical innovations like particular submarine bases and more about understanding the Chinese philosophy of war and conflict. The Chinese approach to warfare is very different from ours. For example, rather than building 500 fighter planes to intercept every American fighter plane, they would try to take out our satellite navigation system.

In your book you argue that real power isn't always loaded into obvious implements like armies.

Today real power is the ability to adjust and come back strong when you're faced with an unexpected shock. That's because in the future we will be constantly surprised -- sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. All of the things that are changing our world, like jet travel and violence and financial markets, are what make us modern and we accept the risks that go along with them. But they also make our world more interconnected, so now a shock to one part of the system presents a greater risk to other parts of the system.

Younger people tend to be more resilient. What does that say about President Obama's cabinet?

You hate to generalize, but I do think young people are more accepting of change. It's no accident that Obama won the presidency on the motto of change. The younger generation has seen so much change in their lifetime, they have a very different perspective. But it's really not about age. You can be 30 years old and very conservative. What matters most now is an innovative spirit and a belief that it is possible to have radical, disruptive change for the better.

We need fresh minds thinking about interesting ideas that could inform the policy-making process.