Subtitled Our information ecosystem, from the Age of Print to the Age of Trump this work deals with the nature of truth and the forces that undermine it or oppose it to protect their vested interests.
Originally published in 2007 it was updated earlier this year to include the story of the Trump election campaign and Trump’s war on the press, free speech and civil liberties since taking office.
… from Al Gore’s website: “Director Davis Guggenheim eloquently weaves the science of global warming with former Vice President Al Gore’s personal history and lifelong commitment to reversing the effects of global climate change in the most talked-about documentary of the year.
“An audience and critical favorite, An Inconvenient Truth makes the compelling case that global warming is real, man-made, and its effects will be cataclysmic if we don’t act now. Gore presents a wide array of facts and information in a thoughtful and compelling way: often humorous, frequently emotional, and always fascinating. In the end, An Inconvenient Truth accomplishes what all great films should: it leaves the viewer shaken, involved and inspired.”
Former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore comes from a wealthy political dynasty and has been a global advocate for action on Climate Change. His film Inconvenient Truth, spawned a global climate movement and an army of climate change speakers who he personally trained.
His latest book and film, An Inconvenient Sequel deals with the diminishing capacity of the political process to engage in rational debate and decision making. It follows on from The Assault on Reason, “a call to rebuild the vitality of American democracy by restoring the nation’s information ecosystem so that we can start making good decisions again”.
US Presidential candidate in the 2000 election, Al Gore lost to George W Bush in a narrowly contested result. After decades as a US Senator and two terms as Bill Clinton’s Vice President he resigned his political positions to found The Climate Reality Project, The Deep Space Climate Observatory and Generation Investment Management.
Christopher Alexander’s best known book, A Pattern Language sets out the 253 individual components of good design identified by Alexander and his students over 20 years of research.
The foundation of most of Alexander’s work, the principles of object-oriented programming and the programming patterns movement, this work has influenced the development of computer science significantly.
In a 2009 lecture, Alexander challenged computer scientists to apply the fundamental principle behind his work, that good design has a moral foundation, to their work. In that speech he said that his research into the influence of his work on computer science revealed to him that this basic principle has been overlooked.
Architect, writer and philosopher, Christopher Alexander has taken a bottom up approach to design, identifying what makes individual components of a design good, and building from that a series of patterns that lead to good architectural design. His best known work A Pattern Language was written in 1977 and compiled thousands of these patterns as the basis for future work.
His work has influenced Computer Science, especially object oriented programming, the design patterns movement and the extreme programming movement. His work was influential in the development of the Wiki, SimCity and its immensely popular spin-of The Sims. His works Notes on the Synthesis of Form, and the Nature of Order underpin significant developments in computer science but Alexander himself has applied them more broadly to investigate religious and philosphical questions from a new basis.
Subtitled On the Front Lines of the Fight against Coal Ted Nace’ book is a personal account of his activist journey as well as an account of the battle between coal funded climate sceptical think tanks and the scientific and environmental community.
A book by Ted Nace, Corporate Gangs of America is an account of the direct lobbying from company directors to raise the status of corporations, starting with personhood in the late nineteenth century and culminating in the protection of their profits under so called free-trade agreements.
While reviewers have criticised the book for failing to take into account the positive benefits of corporations it has been widely recognised as well-researched, and factually accurate. The book has a large amount in common with the 2003 Canadian film The Corporation. in both structure and background research. The film does not credit Corporate Gangs of America as an inspiration or source, however.
Ted is a publisher and environmental activist who made his money through publication of technical books in his company Peachpit Press and then his reputation as an activist for his work Corporate Gangs of America.
He has since focused on activism around Coal.
The history of Peachpit Press is well described in the introduction to one of its many publications, Photoshop CS for Windows.
The Cro
ss is a project, centred on social media, that attempts to put religion in context. On one hand it has evolved from our relationship with nature and the search for meaning that developed from a thoughtful examination of that relationship. On the other, it is a tool of power used by the state to manage the populace more effectively than through the force of arms. Religious and military authority have jostled for position at the head of society for time immemorial, across cultures. The Cross is a project that accepts this fundamental reality and discussed contemporary issues around religion in that context.
It was specifically created to isolate the anti-theists and distinguish its arguments from their simplistic stance. Their position can be characterised as “religion is foolish because it is illogical” or “religion is bad because it is hypocritical”. The Cross assumes that both of these statements are self-evident and significant but have no bearing on the relevance or role of religion in society.
Founder of the Ebono Institute, Giovanni Ebono, is the nom-de-plum of Geoff Ebbs.
He was formed as a comic, working the club circuit in Byron Bay and the NSW Northern Rivers. In the tradition of Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Mark Twain or Lewis Carroll, the character became more famous than the originator, and took on a life of his own.
Giovanni had his own radio show, comedy circuit and theatre following before I decided to legitimise him through a legal name change and run him for politics. He ran for the Federal seat of Richmond in 2007 and 2010, did much better than Geoff Ebbs in 2013 and 2014 and has his own Wikipedia page.
Among other mainstream positions he was the general manager of sewage and water engineering firm, Simmonds & Bristow. I am still asked to present as the character or comment on historical events that he was involved in. Most recently he was asked to contribute a chapter to a book on the history of the NSW Greens and the role of the socialist workers clique that took over the NSW Greens party in the mid nineties and have dominated it since.