Janet does not like the woke (The Australian, October 24-25 2020). “Diversity and inclusion is a new religion” she, Janet Albrechtsen, says... After years, I mean centuries, of oppression of minorities — blacks, gays, Jews, Martians — we’re now letting them take over our gentile life… Or are we? Even with presenting episodic examples of woke intrusion in our bourgeois-lined shoeboxes, she is not convincing anyone about her views of the general crappus.

We know (we should know) that religions are industries and that the woke movement is being turned into an enterprise — but it’s more like a cottage industry, basket weaving with the burning of a few shops and cars — thus this does not mean that woke is a religion, even if the movement tries to forces religions to adapt to the concept of diversity and make them wake up to the reality that Jesus was not a white face. 

Hopefully, we may need to accept the rights of different people to live equally and peacefully in our democratic system. It has never been easy because of cultures, race, taboos, traditions, genders and ages. Even if we have moved from a feudal kingdom to a democratic system — we also have to realise that democracy is a system where the majority rules and that often the system does no favour to minorities, even with 49 per cent opposing the majority’s choices. 



"You see doctor, my love person and I are worried about our child people’s adjustment to a male dominated society."

Like feminism in the sixties and seventies — when this cartoon was published (1975) young miss Janet Kim was only nine years old (I can see her asking the question: "Which one is that talking. Mum or dad?” and being marked for life to become an anti-feminist) — the woke movement is bound to wander into “excess”. it’s the norm when one tries to remove the blanket of repression (see the French Revolution of 1789). Like in any “revolutionary” movements in need of freedom, there are excesses and violence in the woke. We have already exposed some of these excesses on this site, where exclusion happens in reverse especially in the creative industries. 

We should not have to become black, gay or Jewish to be allowed into a merit system, but black, gay, martian and Jewish people should be allowed in the merit system. Simple. The difficulty is to define the merit system.

The major society’s problems is that, despite the efforts of inclusion, there is still a lot of racism, and persecution of colours and of sexual differences. Black people in Australia, as well as in the USA, tend to become prison filler and police punching bags. It is our responsibility to put a stop to this. The “woke” movement is designed to be a prod to “awaken” our general apathy — and sometimes destroy our antipathy which can be anti-black and/or anti-gays. By doing so, it’s likely to engender the reinforcement of our prejudices because we’re perverse in our opposition to what we don’t like.

By way of structures, most religions are exclusive. We may think that religions embrace everyone in their preaching, but they don’t. You’re all welcome as long as you live as we say… The rules and credos of religions deliberately prevent inclusion. As an atheist, I do not worry about this — only making sure that the secular political system remains secular in which inclusion and diversity has a greater chance to be enacted. Throw Scomo out...

Janet deplores that mantras have become a substitute for thinking "about complex issues". Fair enough. Religious organisations are not only full of mantras, but they are full of idiotic credos and NEVER think about complex issues, without using the god deluded factor. The woke movement is developing its own mantras, some of which are naive such as "defund the police", but are understandable when you are the recipient of bullets and truncheon-blows for no other reason than demanding equality and recognition. The woke mantras are idealistic enough to eventually mature into positive territory, without staying outrageous for too long.

I shudder when yet another person, religious or not, claim that sciences and religions are complementary. At this level I perform my woke moment: sciences an religions are not compatible. The application of science can become despotic, such as in the control of Covid-19, but it is not a religion, nor such control is an “exact science". It is a statistical gamble of uncertainty with odds that are not in our favour, in which politicians have to deliver the goods for most people… And atheism is not a religion.
The Chinese took the Wuhan infection seriously and shut the city down for 70 days and helped it cope with the pandemic, bury the dead and eliminate the disease. It was a drastic reaction which was applied to Victoria as well, by “dictator Dan”. It worked for Wuhan and for Victoria. Wuhan celebrated the Western New Year with people, New York celebrated with confetti falling down in empty streets… 
It’s a choice that has to be made soon enough, one way or the other. Even then, ordering people off the streets may not be the solution. New strains of viruses and fear are generating panic amongst those who deal “at the front line". The choice is simple: live as before and take the risk of not having medical attention should you get sick because all the staff are overwhelmed with cases, or go into “forced” lockdowns. Either way, we will blame the state for doing whatever.
By now, depending where you live, you may not be given a choice. Not everyone will catch the virus and not everyone will die from it. Meanwhile other ailments have been forgotten in the fray and attribution of death becomes fuzzy.

Rights do not come from scientific observations, but from our willingness to share. Rights are a social stylistic option. Let’s look at the Californian fires and at Death by Covid-19:

In short, while politicians and media play the climate change card, this narrative only distracts from the true solutions to wildfire damages in the American West, which are known: removing dead trees, both manually and by prescribed burns; reducing human causes of ignition; improving prediction of the paths of spreading fires; and improving response times to suppress fires near human communities. Exaggerating the role of global warming in U.S. wildfires only diverts attention from real solutions to both issues.

Robert C. Thornett 

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/on-wildfires-and-climate-change-the-science-got-in-the-way-of-the-science/

When her 66-year-old father died of Covid, Angelina Proia was left blindsided by his absence and the feeling that her government and fellow citizens had abandoned her. 
"I feel like my country has turned its back on us.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-55503668


These two stories have one thing in common: The State and the individual responsibility. Sharing the blame and the rewards of living. "Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” is our beef. And not everyone reacts in the same manner. 

The science tells us via the Swedish proverb:

"det var droppen som fick bägaren att rinna över”

This is called a tipping point. The dynamic balance is lost and no running forward will stop the jug from falling and breaking on the floor tiles. And there is no reset, nor replay. We clean up and buy a new jug.

Lenton (2013) defines tipping points as points in which small perturbations generate abrupt, often irreversible changes in the future of the system. Note that the fact that perturbation does not need result in immediate change means that tipping points are difficult to predict.
In the mathematical framework presented by Lamberson and Page (2012), large changes in the path of the variable of interest (or the tipping variable (xt)) occur as a consequence of small changes in another system variable (or the threshold variable (yt)) around a tipping point τ belonging to yt space.

The assigned reading strongly relies on dynamical systems constructs to address the following challenges in understanding tipping points:

• The tipping variable (xt) in the system may depend on multiple other system variables.

• The change generated by crossing a threshold point for any of the system variables may not occur immediately. To express this time refraction, use the function LΔ = xt+Δ (how long it takes for the consequences of critical changes in the system to be observable).

• The tipping variable (xt) in the system may depend on multiple other system variables.

• The change generated by crossing a threshold point for any of the system variables may not occur immediately. To express this time refraction, use the function LΔ = xt+Δ (how long it takes for the consequences of critical changes in the system to be observable).

https://www.e-education.psu.edu/eme504/node/583


If this does not make sense in regard to Janet’s rant about woke, and to the two examples above, don’t worry. All this means is that we are in the flux of a dynamic system and whatever we do to tame one aspect of it, we will be face by another unpredictability of moment (the weather), but having to deal with activated/reactive trends (climate change human induced: global warming).

Image at top, extract from a Benier cartoon (1974)...