A temporary diversion. The reduction of belief into impossibility.

Introduction

I'd like to divert a moment to highlight the flaw in the belief in god. I'll get back to my Australian revolution idea in the next blog. So, while reading a few anti-theist books I encounter many religious arguments that many aren't seeing for what they are. The argument from complexity. the argument from beauty, the argument from design to me all seem to be the same argument. The argument from improbability. In this blog, I'm going to take the first 10 arguments from this site referenced in Richard Dawkins' 'The God Delusion'.

So lets get started!

Ding Ding (that's me hitting the boxing match starting bell thing you hear i boxing matches) so first off we have

1 - TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT

If reason exists then God exists. Reason exists. Therefore, God exists.

So lets look at this. The argument can be viewed as "it is extremely improbable (to make it impossible) that reason could have happened to exist in the universe without god making it exist. Therefore god exists. This is the argument from improbability.

2 - COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

If I say something must have a cause, it has a cause. I say the universe must have a cause. Therefore, the universe has a cause. Therefore, God exists.

So lets look at this one. this is Thomas Aquina's argument, the everything has a cause, therefore the universe has a cause. God terminates the regress. But this can be viewed as "based on observation things I see have a cause, not having seen everything and associated its cause, I can say that it is highly improbable that everything else I have seen has a cause, but the universe does not. Its improbable that the universe is the only thing without a cause, therefore it must have a cause". This is the argument from improbability.

3 - ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

I define God to be X. Since I can conceive of X, X must exist. Therefore, God exists.

So this says, My mind is so complex that mere chance can not have created it. If it is so complex as to be able to conceive of a god, then it is far far to improbable to have been created by anything other than god. The formation of my mind is to improbably complex to have not been deliberately created. This defaults to the argument from improbability in the way i have just discussed and it falls to the argument from improbability from the argument from complexity. This ones a freebe and is not counted in the 10.

ARGUMENT FROM COMPLEXITY

That which is complex has a creator. The universe is complex. Only God is complex enough to create the universe. Therefore, God exists.

The argument made here (falling into the argument from improbability being that this is the Cosmological argument (2)) is that the universe is to complex to have been created by something other than something more complex than itself. The argument in this case is that its improbable for the universe to have formed without superior design. This is the argument from improbability. Any argument depending on the argument from complexity defaults to the argument from improbability

4 - ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

I can conceive of a perfect God. One of the qualities of perfection is existence. Therefore, God exists.

This is a rewording of number 3. as such this argument defaults to 3 and then defaults to the argument from improbability. You notice that these arguments get easier to debunk as you progress as they tend to be essentially reworded forms of the same argument.

5 - MODAL ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

God is either necessary or unnecessary. God is not unnecessary, therefore God must be necessary. Therefore, God exists.

This argument says that god is necessary presumably in the cosmological argument sense to start the process of the universe. The argument being that it is highly unlikely that the universe started by itself than was created by a god. This is the argument from improbability in the way I just mentioned and on its dependence on the Thomas Aquina prime mover argument I discussed in number 2. Lets not forget for a moment that this argument does not identify why god is not unnecessary. It just claims it to be so.

6 - TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

Check out the world/universe/giraffe. Isn't it complex? Only God could have made them so complex. Therefore, God exists.

Again this is the argument from complexity. which is relegated to the argument from improbability in number 3. Things are to complex to have come about by chance. It is improbable that things could arrive at their current complex state of being without having a designer. This is the argument from improbability.

7 - DESIGN/TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

Isn't that baby/sunset/flower/tree beautiful? Only God could have made them so beautiful. Therefore, God exists.

The argument here is that a baby, sunset, flower or tree is too complex, to intricate, to aesthetically pleasing to have been created by chance. It is improbable that beauty can exist without god making them beautiful. This the argument from improbability. It is also the argument from complexity, which defaults to the argument form improbability. Lets think for a second. I can create a beautiful thing and I am not a god. Why is creating beautiful things only in gods hands? No-one answers this question. If I can create beauty then maybe I'm god...

8 - ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES

My aunt had cancer. The doctors gave her all these horrible treatments. My aunt prayed to God and now she doesn't have cancer. Therefore, God exists.

The argument here is that it is improbable that the near certainty of death caused by cancer could repair itself without god. (even though spontaneous remission is a legitimate medical phenomenon). The argument in this example describes a miracle by beating the odds. It is too improbable to beat cancer so god must have done it. This is the argument from improbability.

9 - MORAL ARGUMENT

Person X, a well-known atheist, was morally inferior to the rest of us. Therefore, God exists.

A rather biased question which needs to be rephrased. We are moral in the face of the chance to be immoral. God claimed to set morals, therefore god makes us moral. This argument supposes that morals are so complex that they can not be created by chance. This is the argument from improbability (and the argument from complexity, which is the argument from improbability)

10 - MORAL ARGUMENT

In my younger days I was a cursing, drinking, smoking, gambling, child-molesting, thieving, murdering, bed-wetting bastard. That all changed once I became religious. Therefore, God exists.

This is just another form of the number 9. While it seems like it can't be answered by improbability, the argument is "it is improbable that I could have acted morally without religion". As stated in number 9, it presupposes that morals are to complex to arrive out of mere interaction with good people. Lets take a moment to recognise that religion does not have a monopoly on morality. Far more immoral accusations have been made against the Australian religious community (religious leaders) than the Australian political community (politicians). The argument here is that its improbable to get morals anywhere else other than religion.



As Number 10 was essentially a rewording of number 9, i'll throw in number 11

11 - ARGUMENT FROM CREATION

If evolution is false, then creationism is true, and therefore God exists. Evolution can't be true, since I lack the mental capacity to understand it; moreover, to accept its truth would cause me to be uncomfortable. Therefore, God exists.

This is yet another bias worded argument. But its meaning is essentially the cosmological argument. the universe is to improbable for even evolution to create. The universe thus must have been created by a some being capable of managing that complexity. It is the argument from complexity and the cosmological argument. Both these default to the argument from improbability.

Conclusion

I could go on and on all day citing the 666 arguments for god. You see how as they progress they become more and more dependant on other arguments of faith. Each stem from a perceived level of complexity that is improbable to reconcile without god. I am not going to provide the solution to the argument from improbability, as that is not my intention with this post. I am indicating that while faith seem to have many argument for the existence of god, they really only have one. The argument from improbability. Religions many differently worded forms of the argument from improbability prompt me to ask a question. What is the probability that god could exist? The argument from improbability seems to rule out god as a solution.

Robotic Democrat idea #101 - Revolution Part 2 - Abolishment of the States

I have noticed that many grammatical errors have crept into my last blog. Its concerning and undermines the point i am trying to make. I'll make a concerted effort to minimise such errors in future blogs. Anyway;

Introduction
We discussed the elimination of self segregation in the last blog. You may have noticed that part of the idea hinges on the ability to control housing and education across state boarders. Housing and Education are state concerns, and this presents us with an issue in many areas. Lets ignore performance for the moment and look at principals. Our Department of Human services arm of the government is a non centralised. The goals and rules of each department are separate and do not align with each other. Do we as a country want the role of the community services protecting children and families to be different depending on which state you currently happen to be residing in? Should a child in the Northern Territory and a child in New South Wales be entitled to the same protections? The answer has to be yes. How about Education. Should a child educated in the ACT be entitled to the same quality of education as a child educated in Tasmania? The answer has to be yes.

What about Hospitals? Should a patient that is treated in a South Australian hospital be entitled to the same level of care as a patient in a Victorian hospital. The examples go on an on. Why are we permitting the states to run services that have a national priority. This undermines our concept of a fair go. To extend this concept from a principled stance to a practical one, what the hell is going on with our transport system. A person travelling on public transport with a student card in Victoria is not entitled to use their ticket or concessions on any public transport system in New South Wales. Why? the ticket is paid for. The concession legitimately approved.

Why does a young driver in Western Australia who is bared from driving at night (therefore has no night experience), who is only required to attain 25 hours of driving experience, permitted to drive in victoria where not only would that person have to be 18, but attain 120 hours of driving experience. The 17 year old unskilled driver can drive on complicated Melbourne CBD streets, streets that phase even established drivers.

The question is, why do we have so many of these universal services being managed by states? There is no good reason. We are limited by the text of the Australian constitution which was designed for a time where a federal government would not have the technical capacity or knowledge to manage such things.

Abolishment of the states
So we have indicated that the states require abolishment. So what do we put in its place. Do we have a simple national government leading the charge in every area, imposing generalist rules onto every region. Well that's obviously not better than the system we have now. The function of the states should be fractured into regions. collections of local government control centralised into larger and more powerful regional government. The magnate of these types of regional governments should be to fulfil the strategic goals of the nation, to maintain infrastructure to the required national level, and to push proposals for enhanced services to the federal government for approval, and then be responsible to the implementation of successful proposals.

Many city planning and other duties of the regions should remain the same, with a distinct federal uniform focus. If one region is getting new services, then those services should be permitted to everyone. If one region uses a certain pedestrian walkway size, then that metric should be used by everyone. Building codes, local rules should not be permitted to regionally specific. There are some areas in need of certain local rules. For instance, there are communities of 'victorian homes' that the heritage trust has a vested interest in keeping 'victorian' (their facades are distinctly 19th century and the heritage trust and the community want to keep it that way). In such cases, rules should be determined by the heritage trust and not the regional governments. While that is a positive example of catering for local needs, a local council adjacent to me has implemented a rule that fences should be higher than generally accepted in other council areas. Bins are not permitted to be seen from the street etc. These are examples of useless aesthetic policies based on the personal opinion of some ambitious local zealot. Such policies should not be imposed on communities simply because a local councilman thinks that it should happen (law should have legitimate reason, not be imposed based on personal desire). Pushing all such laws to the federal government (a special division of it may need to be established to service this role) would ensure that only policies that have a legitimate benefit be adopted, and adopted Australia wide.

Integration of laws
Due to the fact that we have permitted the states to self govern for so long, it will take a lot of effort to push their duties to the federal government. While adoption of policies Australia wide or pushing the duties of the state to a federal level are largely semantic,  the trouble we face is in legal integration. At what age can a person get their P plate license? 17 or 18? At what speeds can a p plater travel on 110km/h highways, 80, 90, 100? Each state has various semantic rules. A temporary office of legal integration would need to be established to evaluate competing legislation enacted by various state governments. In the case where the law is not as effective as those established by other states, the most useful law would be adopted. If it turns out the denying p platers to drive at night makes no difference to road tolls (as i have no doubt a proper study would show), then it should be dropped in favour of the other states absence of a curfew. While this seems like a hairy task, an adequate analysis of the justification of competing laws and allowing the adequate analysis to make integration decisions should make the whole process work effectively.
The end result of the integration would be the establishment of national serving laws, uniform across the states.

Result
As you may very well imagine there are many many other factors to consider when changing to this new system. An adequate and lengthy review and planning process would need to be undertaken. The underlying principal remains that all departments with a national interest should be run nationally. In an Australia with no state governments, the divisions (state boundaries) would still exist, but in name only. Any Australian driving from one side of the country to the other would be subject to the same driving laws, same police, same rights and responsibilities for their actions. A child need not enter into a lengthy legal battle when custody of parents are contested across state lines, a child in Alice Springs would have the same rights and privileges as a child in Adelaide or Broome. People fishing on the murry river need not worry about how to alter their fishing behavior, based on which side of the river they are currently standing on.

Australia needs a uniform legislative framework to ensure that we conform to quintessential Australian concept of a "fair go", rather than a go in one state and another on another state.

This is a massive abstraction of a very complex process. I am interested in hearing your comments and criticisms. Post them in the comments section of you have any such comments.

Robotic Democrat idea #101 - Revolution Part 1 - Abolishment of cultural self segregation

Introduction
Interesting and provocative title. Why a revolution, well the idea is a collection of interlinking related ideas which flow one to the next. Each relatively meaningless and trivial when viewed independently but when connected form to create a paradigm shifting environment in the Australian political scene. For the best effect, each idea, with a few exceptions, would need to be actioned in line with the others. The order of the parts may need realignment, but the principals are what we need to focus on. This step partly depends on the abolishment of the states mentioned in a later part. I call it the abolishment of cultural self segregation. What does it mean?

Cultural Self Segregation
People in Australia live in a relatively egalitarian society. At least that's the perception, our law is universal, our access to healthcare welfare and education is universal, but the implementation of much of that is not. We permit communities to grow where racial diversity is abandoned. Cities like Melbourne and Sydney tend to be egalitarian hubs, but there are certain suburbs (to avoid stereotyping I'll avoid citing actual communities, but we all know where they are) which have become hubs for certain races. In a society that prides itself on its multiculturalism and diversity, that's bad. We shouldn't have any communities that actively cluster and self segregate. Its not just cultural background but religious background. Each religion to varying degrees tends to congregate in specific areas. They then get large enough to start their own schools and shops frequented only by their particular type of people. This is self segregation. Why oppose it? For the same reason we opposed imposed segregation (government sanctioned segregation). We are all the same and there is no reason to segregate others or segregate ourselves from the diversity of the Australian community.

Religious Schools
In Australia we permit the existence of religious themed primary and secondary schools (there are tertiary ones, but they are unpopular) to teach some of our more religious peoples. Why is this bad? Well there are three main reasons. First is self segregation, children growing up in these schools tend to live in segregated community areas, go to churches with people of only their faith and general background. They don't mix with the many varied cultures that make up Australia. This means that children brought up in this sheltered world are not experiencing the richness of the Australian culture. They end up as unequipped adults who's actions flow into the second point, Intolerance. While many religious schools do preach tolerance, understanding and all such virtuous traits, it tends not to be tolerance as defined by the Australian secular mass. They get taught to accept the ridiculousness of other races and religions. This is not the same egalitarian philosophy held by most Australians. Depending on the religion, acts against the secular and other religious masses inevitably ensue. Its a cycle that is easily broken by removing self segregation. Permitting children as they grow to view others as equals and not as unenlightened infidels that have to be tolerated until... is something we should strive towards. How do we do this, No more religious schools. We have a theoretical separation of church and state in Australia which suggests that religion be kept out of the schools.

The third point is indoctrination and violation of public mores. Religious schools push an addenda. We usually permit churches to fill this role, populating the masses heads full of impossible parables and mock meanings of life. Permitting religious schools cements religions control over our peoples minds. Indoctrination is something to be opposed, it removes the choice of religion and the choice to participate from children. Depending on the religion, apostasy comes with harsh biblical and social punishments (just ask Salmon Rushdie). Before permitting children to join an organisation that preaches that you should be killed if you leave, shouldn't we permit children to reach the age of reason to decide whether to join? Permitting religious schools robs children of this choice. They get their minds poisoned by shiny haired charlatans preaching soothing nonsense in exchange for their money at a later date. Once this indoctrination takes hold religions poison the minds of its participants against he public mores. One great example of this is homosexuality. Islam, Judaism and Christianity all preach, with varying opposition against the practice. The Australian social mass has decided that we are to tolerate homosexuality. Australia has decided that homosexuality should be regarded with the same value as heterosexuality (except in the case of marriage, which in itself is a religious thing). Catholicism will foster an intolerance to homosexuals describing such actions as a sin and refusing to give a homosexual communion. These underlying moral get taught to children attending schools run by these people, then spread their intolerance into the community. It should be stopped.


Cultural hubs
While there is some merit to having cultural (and for the sake of argument we'll include religion in this label) hubs for new migrants. They tend to travel and settle in these areas as the general human drive is to seek out people who are just like you. However the net result of forming cultural hubs is the formation of exclusionist splinter factions of culture. Such factions breed intolerance and generally separate themselves from the social mass. This acts in opposition to the principals of egalitarianism and diversity that the country is based on. We were never designed to be a country of cultural hubs, but a nation of many people, from many backgrounds all working together. Homogeneous white Australian communities foster intolerance of international peoples, refugees and indigenous Australians, while homogeneous Jewish and Asian communities foster a similar intolerance against others. Such ridiculous viewpoints are a result of continued multi-generational isolation.

Action
What needs to be done. Addressing the problem with religious schools is simple. We outlaw the preaching of religion outside the informational (non-indoctrinating) teachings in RE classes. We then remove all religious iconography from schools. Lastly we remove the capacity for schools to discriminate based on religion or identify themselves as a particular religion. We place forward plans to remove religious typing amongst students, fostering integration amongst students and discourage religious identification and self segregation. Lastly, we address the school curriculum, standardising it across the states. Permitting small proved areas for where teaches can add sections to align with community trends. The general idea of Australian education should be that no matter where in the country you go to school, be it in an outback school in the middle of central western Australia, or in scotch college in Melbourne, you should receive the same knowledge and opportunities. This is not the case at the moment. Australian state boarders are meaningless. A child taught in Broome needs to know the same info as a child taught in Sydney if only because both may end up living in the others city.
Addressing the problem of cultural hubs is much harder. But we do perform a similar function with the public housing system (at least in Victoria). Affluent suburbs are partly targeted by the housing commission as areas to place housing commission houses. People making use of these houses tend to be lower on the socio-economic scale. The result of this is that we don't end with ridiculously affluent areas and ridiculously poor areas. We ensure the egalitarian focus of Australia is maintained. So we do this for religious and cultural hubs. We recommend and perhaps even incentive people to choose to settle in areas that are not populated by people of their own religion or cultural background. Pointing more immigrants toward living in rural Australian areas is already on the political landscape as it will allow Australia to grow in population without clogging up the services of our major cities. We could discourage the display of foreign language signs on cultural hubs shops, perhaps enforcing a rule that in the cases where foreign language signs are needed, an English translation should be part of that sign. A rule similar tot his exists in Canada, although for the purposes of maintaining the French language in its cultural zeitgeist. We could star public education campaigns designed to get differencing cultures together to participate in community activities, officially designate English as out national language (only because having one language is conducive to coordination and English is by far the major language spoken in the country). Offer perpetual free English language courses for all people, to attempt to find the few non-English speaking victims of cultural hubs and encourage them to be able to integrate with the rest of the Australian community. A department of cultural affairs could be formed to oversee the uncoupling of Australia's religious and cultural hubs, and ensure that we all get to experience each other without receding into out own little cultural factions.

Result
While this is a rather difficult thing to do, its actions would only be able to see as a result of continued influence. There is no law that can be enacted that can magically remove religious schools and cultural hubs from the Australian community. Continued influence by the federal government can ensure that we don't fracture into subgroups and act in opposition to each other. It should ensure that the social mores of the people of Australia are not degraded (for want of a better term) by the residual mores of external cultures or by the dogmatic rantings of religions. We can foster the ("we are one but we are many") message that Bruce Woodly portrays in his iconic Australian song. Such actions (and the desire to take control of the health system from the state) will set the groundwork for the next phase. The abolishment of the self governing states.

Robotic Democrat idea #177 – Dual sewage systems

Introduction

While much of the country is still on water restrictions and the continued growth of the country in its limited fruitful regions keeps growing, there becomes a need to ration water. The introduction of desalination plants (converting sea water into drinking water) looks to alleviate some of the pressure, they are only part of a solution. While depending on rain is clearly not the optimum solution, populating our lush coastline with environmentally damaging desalination plants is also not optimum. A focus on the conservation of existing water and an optimisation of desalinated water should be our focus. How do we ensure this?

Categorising the types of water usage

There clearly are different categories for water usages. Watering your garden is clearly separate from drinking glasses of water. Washing your clothes in water is clearly separate from using water to flush waste away in your toilet. There are degrees of quality which go uncategorised, unharnessed.

For the sake of prudence, we’ll categorise household (and industrial use of water) into two categories.

1.     Drinking water – Water for bathing, drinking, preparing food etc, essentially any water that actually touches you or anything you eat.

2.     Utility water – Water used for other purposes, where sanitary isn’t a large concern.

We reject entirely recycled water because we don’t want to drink it, however don’t have such an issue using that water as a medium for flushing our waste from our toilets.

Recycling and optimising the water supply.

So its clear that the average household and business needs not one but two types of water. One fit for human consumption and the other not. I propose that we start an initiative whereby we build new houses with two sets of water pipes. In these new estates where these houses are being build, we incorporate water recycling mechanisms where drainage water, sewage water, and generate waste water is collected, processed and returned as Utility water. Such water would be used to operate washing machines and garden hoses and toilets. A different coloured tap, perhaps a red one would denote the fact that the tap contains non-drinking water.

The specific use of the water depends on the social mores of the population. However in situations like filling a swimming pool it is patently ridiculous that we fill a household pool with hundreds to thousands of litres of drinking water. We then fill the pool full of chemicals making the water no longer drinkable or suitable for any common use. Recycled water would not contain anything that would harm or otherwise not be contained in common drinking water. Ideally its use as a standard water source would be optimal, however this concept is unpalatable. While the use of utility water in pools may depend on the local population. There clearly are areas, significant areas where the type of water would be useful. Denying recycled waters use in the general population and using drinking water for all purposes is clearly not a sustainable option.

What would all this achieve?

Well, instead of having one fickle source for all our water needs, rain, we would distribute sources so that most of a cities drinking water could be derived from desalination plants, most of a cities utility water could be recycled from expended desalination water, expended utility water and general rain runoff. In reality we could simply pump expended utility water back into desalination plants (if you understand what desalination plants do you’ll realise that the only thing that comes out of them is pure (useless chemical H2O (water used for ironing boards)) water). An additional market would arise in the use of collected waste. Such waste would generally be suitable for use as fertilisers or could be collected and resold chemical waste. At a minimum, waste water could be used to power methane power plants which could in turn power the desalination plants. While it may seem to open an environmental waste issue, we would simply be collecting waste that would otherwise be dispersed into the environment or return back into the water table. Such waste would inevitably end up in drinking water unless collected.

Desalinating, Separating and recycling water would ensure that we could comfortably use water into future. It is a cost effective, simple (in comparison to the current system) and scalable solution that would not need re-engineering by our descendants (as the current water system, designed by our ancestors needs re-engineering now).

Robotic Democrat Idea #203 - The floating retirement age

Floating retirement age? what is that? What are you talking about? 
Well, in Australia the growing number of retirees is going to place a huge burden on the average tax payer. The lowering of the ratio of tax paying citizens vs retirees means that the population will be facing significant budget restrictions. Inevitably if nothing is done, the government is going to have to cut some services in order to continue to support tax paying and retiree citizins.

"We'll either generate some large unsustainable budget deficits into the second quarter of this century, or else we'll need to reduce government services,"
Kevin Rudd

 Rudds solution, work harder. 

 "Australia must take decisive action to drive productivity forward to improve living standards, to deliver better services, while keeping the budget on a sustainable footing and to improve Australia's international competitiveness"
Kevin Rudd

Well that just isn't a real solution. Compensate for a failing solution by banging your head against it harder, yeah that'll work...

So, the options seem to be cut services, cut pensions or work harder. There is another option.

The Floating Retirement Age
Well. The Rudd government increased the retirement age from 65 to 67 starting 2014 in hopes of mitigating the upcoming retirement of the baby boomers. It won't be enough. Lets look at the situation from an historic point of view
The retirement age has been 65 for men (we'll exclude women for simplicity) since before 1935. Yet the life expectancy has increased steadily from that point. (based on Centerlink and ABS data)

As you can see there has been a significant change in the dynamic. We are retiring at the same age, yet living longer. So what do we do for the nation and its ability to keep us living longer? We clog up government services until the government is forced to reduce legitimate services to the needy to pay for aged Australians. According to an article in the Journal of Population Research, Australia is projected to approach a life expectancy of around 100 years by 2050. So what's the remedy. We float the retirement age according to life expectancy.

The Float
We have the CSIRO and other firms determine the age at which people no longer are capable of participating in the employment sector, expressed as a margin between the life expectancy extending backwards. For instance, stating that the margin is 15 years tells us that someone who has a life expectancy of 85 should be working until they're 70. While that margin stated here is random, the CSIRO and other firms would be able to state with a reasonable degree of certainty where that margin does lie. It is reasonable to assume that a person who had reached the age of 70 in 1930 is less capable than a person who has reached the age of 70 in today and future years. Medical advancements have made people live not only longer but more meaningful lives. Australia as a nation should be capitalising on on that.

We could go to the extent of reserving low reaction time low cognitive ability jobs for older Australians. Sure, a 70 year old Australian may not be able to be a nascar driver, but they should be able to work as a cashier or a greeter or a telemarketer. The government could institute tax incentives for older Australians who remain in the work force, a lowering of income tax perhaps. A lowering of the hours in an older Australians working week (20 perhaps instead of 40).

Conclusion bit
So there does exist a legitimate problem that an arbitrary raising of the 'pension age' isn't going to fix. Floating the retirement age stops the growing discrepancy between life expectancy and retirement age shown in the graph above. It ensures that Australia gets the optimum amount of output from every Australian and permits the country to continue offering top notch services to its people. While raising the retirement age to 67 is a bandaid solution, floating the retirement age is an ultimate solution. One that doesn't need addressing in 50 years.


Any criticisms, comments, questions, please put them in the comment section.

Robotic Democrat Idea #347 - The forward and reverse Fat Tax.

Introduction
So, first blog... exciting... The general idea is to express some of my many ideas to improve the political landscape of Australia. Some are legitimate, some are not legitimate. Most are simply political commentary, designed to spark debate and thought.

Anyway lets get right into the thick of it...

The forward and reverse fat tax? what is that? What are you talking about?
Well yeah, I just made that name up for the title. I call it my fat tax idea. obesity in Australia is a serious concern. Australia's obesity problem, depending on who's definition of fat you use ([2][3][4][5]) is quite obviously out of control. we rank between 1st to 21st in various reports. Regardless of the legitimacy and accuracy of those reports, their results are undeniable. we're getting fat. To understand the tax you need to understand my supposed reasoning about why Australians are getting fat to begin with.

Why are  Australians getting fat?
Take a stroll down your local shopping centre. Endeavour to gauge the number of stores selling food. If you were to derive a ratio between the number of shop fronts selling healthy food compared to the number selling unhealthy food you'd no doubt find that the far greater majority of all shops sell unhealthy food. Fat food. Indulgent food. When we combine that with the prevalence of fast food outlets, more than 27 major chains within a 10 minute walk from my place, we get presented with a serious issue of the quality of our food supply. The argument could be made that cafe / fast food / food court operations are supposed to be indulgent, limited experiences. However that's not something I happen to agree with. I think that logic is reversed. We are forced to buy fast food infrequently due to the almost exclusively gluttonous nature of the food presented to us at these stores. I'd be willing to concede the fatness of fast food and blame fatness on people without the will power to say no to that 2nd double quarter pounder. (don't ever buy one... its got almost a days worth of fat intake in just that one burger [6]). However, take a walk through your local supermarket. You'll struggle to find products that don't either have a high fat content, high salt content or a high sugar content. I'd argue that much of the only way to ensure your food intake contains a normal level of fat salt and sugar is to make the stuff yourself from scratch. The fact that not only do food vendors sell far more unhealthy products than healthy products, but its supermarkets as well. You'd struggle to find a niece marketplace where you could buy normal human food. Our entire country is stocked with fat peoples food, and its making everyone fat.

What can we do about it?
Well, we can do a lot. I think people tend to go for the fattening things because they're cheap. I don't buy the argument that people buy fatty food every day because it tastes better. If that was the case, we'd all be munching on ferrero rochers all day long. We only buy those things on special occasions because they're so expensive. So How do we apply that dynamic to the problem. The forward and reverse fat tax.

You increase the taxation on all foods declared unhealthy. You get the CSIRO and a few other independent firms to start categorising food, somewhat the way we categorise books and movies. However the categorisation would need to be somewhat convoluted and complex. You'd tax fat salt and other bad ingredients proportional to the Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) and the size of the food. If you have a doughnut that has 2 times the RDI of fat, 2 times the RDI of salt and 2 times the calories (random figures here, to illustrate the concept), then you tax the crap out of it. You open end the tax, so the food is taxed proportional to the unhealthiness of the food. On the other hand, foods that have have such low levels of fat salt and calories, proportional to their sizes and RDI's would be negativity taxed (prices actively lowered by the government, if the apple costs $0.55 then at the checkout you pay something like $0.45). The negative tax made proportional to the healthiness of the food. In that the far majority of cases, items on supermarket shelves and sold in shops and restaurants would be classified as unhealthy, the policy itself would not only break even, but make the government money. Money could go to campaigns to battle obesity and fund the categorisation of food by the CSIRO and other firms.

With the introduction of the forward and reverse fat tax, the appeal of healthy food will grow when compared to the appeal of food that is generally not healthy to eat. In the algorithm like policy used to classify the tax on food (it wouldn't have to be like I said, I'm no nutritionist, however there are many ways to tax food to get the result i am mentioning) you would make size a negative factor in need of taxation.

While it is true that large families may require bigger bags of crap to feed everyone, this is not a legitimate argument as to why we should not tax products marketed as more servings than is reasonable. I brought a cup thing of yoghurt and fruit the other day, in a container like the one you get cream in, and it indicated that it contained 3 servings. Yet there was no real way to store the thing after you opened it. It was just a scam to make you think the yoghurt had less fat in it than it does. A bag of 2 kilos of chips is more likely to be over indulged than a 500g bag of chips. Buying multiple bags would suit the need for large families, and in cases where large families are buying largely good food, they would be getting significant tax reductions on their food. That would far outweigh the loss attributed to "large value packs".

What impact would such a thing have on people?

The benefit of buying a 400g block of chocolate over a 45g bar would be decreased, and buyers would actually be charged for the negative impact the 400g block (which is quite large) has on themselves.

I think you get the general idea. Small portioned things would go down in price, it would become more profitable to offer appropriate serving sized treats to people. It would also offer more motivation for firms creating treats to create them so that they are more healthy. More motivation to create food in general in appropriate sizes and creating them so that they are generally healthier. People would stop the trend of saving money buy buying the oversized block of chocolate and then eating it all in one day. that's (110g [7]) of fat in one day. Guaranteed to make you fat.

End bit that's not a conclusion as the last bit already was
So, I hope you had fun reading this :D. If you think its not feasible, that it wouldn't do anything. Want to yell at me and call me fancy internet profanities. Leave a comment. I have many more ideas, some way more outlandish and other way more feasible that I'll include as time goes on. Keep up to date by doing the twitter following thing. the twitter follow thing is in the top right hand corner (well not the top, and only at the top right of this container) 

References
1. World's Fattest Countries, <http://au.pfinance.yahoo.com/special-features/fattest_countries/index.html> 
2. Worlds Fattest Countries, <http://www.forbes.com/2007/02/07/worlds-fattest-countries-forbeslife-cx_ls_0208worldfat_2.html> 
3. Australia world's fattest nation, U.S. 2nd, <http://www.japantoday.com/category/world/view/australia-worlds-fattest-nation-us-2nd as sdv> 
4. Australia now fattest country in the world, <http://www.health-fitness.com.au/australia-now-fattest-country-in-the-world/> 
5. Obesity statistics - countries compared - NationMaster:, <http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-obesity> 
6. McDonald's Nutrition Information, <http://mcdonalds.com.au/sites/mcdonalds.com.au/files/images/Nutrition-Information-9-March-2010.pdf>
7. Cadbury Lite vs. Cadbury Dairy Milk, <http://www.chocablog.com/reviews/cadbury-lite-vs-cadbury-dairy-milk/>