I see one big problem with Google Wave as it stands; who do I communicate with?

(My having to publish this here illustrates the problem. I can share this with precisely one person on Google Wave, as things stand).

When I'm using email, I can communicate with anyone who has an email address, on any platform, as long as I know that address. With Google Wave, they must have a Google account.

With a blog, I can publish, and anyone with a H.T.M.L.-capable device and an internet connection can read my blog, and reply. Blogs often become conversations. With Google Wave, I can only communicate with other Google Wave users.

Google Wave needs to be available to people who don't have an account.

Googe Wave needs to have a general publication option.

Of course, it has definite pluses. Being able to have a conversation involving several people, where one can see what is happening live, but doesn't necessarily have to be online for the whole conversation to keep it alive; what a godsend. Especially once it goes mobile.

So; this is an exciting idea, but it needs to be more open.

The Social Democrats must turn the question around.

Currently, the Social Democrats are losing a P.R. war in Sweden; the media are asking them if they are the party of raises taxes; and they hum and haw, because they don't want to say yes, but they can't honestly say no.

They sound turn that question around and say that they are the party for seeing that government does it's job; namely, that society works for every-one, and no just the seventy percent (and falling) of people that can make a ruthless market economy work for them.

But they also need to acknowledge that the system as it was has faults; that simply giving people who fall out of the working mainstream money doesn't work either for individuals or society.

A lot of people in Sweden are on early retirement because they couldn't cope with working life, sometimes from as early as their twenties. A lot of immigrants find that it is nearly impossible to find work unless one can create it for ones self, an ability that we don't all possess. And a lot of Swedes aren't good enough at school to get a qualification and find themselves competing for the unqualified tasks, of which their aren't enough to go around.

But I can say from both personal experience and statistical data that not having something to work for in life is soul destroying; people who are retired early don't live as long as every-one else.

I'm not saying that society should find make-work, or punish people who can't find regular work; but that a role for all of these people who are left behind must be found. Because it's unacceptable that people should be left behind, and it's a problem that's only going to get worse.

And it's a problem that the current government doesn't acknowledge. Paupering the workforce to make them more competitive might create more jobs; but you've also paupered the work force. That's not a solution.

And I doubt that it will work. There will always be some-one who is more competitive.

Pension age.

Yes, that title promises a roller-coaster ride of a blog entry, I know.

I was thinking (always a mistake) about Britain's plan to increase the pension age to sixty-six, to save money. I think it's a false economy.

Increasing the pension age in a time of high unemployment shouldn't reduce the number of dependents on state aid; the people not being pensioned should, one might assume, have otherwise been replaced by people who were unemployed,  at least, they should have created a job vacancy for some-one previously unemployed.

Being a pensioner doesn't at all carry the stigma of being unemployed. Pensioners don't need harassing by public servants to change their status, or retraining programmes, and hopefully don't become unmotivated and suicidally depressed.

I think that they should take it the other way in times of high unemployment. It would also makes cuts in the public sector less painful.

Or?

Chestnuts.

Once again, this time on Sveriges Radios Christer, the alternative of sticking a tax on broadband to compensate copyright-owners was raised. Not discussed, just raised.

Mm. I have no objection to paying copyright holders, but I do object to paying twice. I buy my music from emusic and iTunes, or on C.D.; shall I pay for the privilege of paying again? If a tax is introduced, I would expect file sharing to become legal. Fair is fair.

And who shall get this money? Shall we trust a private body to distribute this bounty? Shall it go to a select few artists based on their size, as the fees paid by shops do? What copyright holders shall qualify? Photographs are routinely pirated on the web. What burden of evidence will be placed on claimants? How will their share be calculated?

The gentleman who suggested this, with no further expansion, called himself a philosopher. Damn sloppy work, I have to say.  A degree does not a philosopher make.

Britain is becoming a scary place.

They're starting to routinely log all traffic movements in Britain.

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/whos_watching_you/8064333.stm)

The traditional argument trotted out by supporters of unregulated government survelliance of the population is that if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear.

This supposes a police force that is beyond reproach, and a reasonable justice system. That's a hell of a given. I've seen reclaim the streets protesters being beaten in Dublin, with-out provocation; they were simply cycling on the street, congesting traffic. I've seen film of poll tax protesters who were sitting peacefully outside Downing Street being charged by police on horses. New age travellers having their homes burnt at stone henge because Thatcher didn't approve. And that's in the democratic Western world.

I suspect that proponents ae civil rights are often thought of cranks, but I don't think so. A free society is something you get from not allowing too much power to concentrate in any-one's hands, and making the instruments of govenment and policing transparent to scrutiny. Yes, that makes their jobs harder, but the alternative is the possibility of a police state. No thanks.

Ego.

Enough to drive one forward, but not so much that one forgets the needs of others. Tricky.

Musings on Superman.

I used to think that Superman would be very difficult to write; where's the challenge for him, he can do anything. But I changed my mind. On a mundane level, this is a guy who's taken the weight of the world on shoulders; he may be unbelievably powerfull, but he's still just one guy who can't be everywhere. Couldn't that give one a nervous breakdown? How does he deal with complex situations? What does he believe?

And he's a journalist who can go anywhere, hear and see anything, and then express himself to a broad public. In a way, Clark Kent could be more powerfull than Superman; what does he do with this power?

On a barely related subject, I read about Richard Dawkins expressing the fear that magical childrens fantasies could make children more likely to fall for religion. I don't know about that, I suspect that realising Narnia isn't at at the back of the wardrobe is probably a good first step on the way to questioning the other fantasies that one is presented with. But also, the regular dreams that we're presented with, namely money, fame and supercompetence, are so boring that we need something more. And something that can stimulate a belief in a better world, a more fun world, because we have to dream about it before we can make it. And I want a nice, fluffy world where no-one is hungry and every-one can be what they want to be and the walls glow electric blue or whatever.