Horizon Scan No.1 - Genesis

What's been on the radar this week.

Happy Friday!

I’ll start with just thanking you for being here, subscribing and supporting my work. Whether that’s writing or the work on the No Idea Podcast I do with Hugh Keir.

I’m still testing and adjusting with my plans for the ‘SEG-Stack’ and balancing that with what I do day to day with SEG as a whole. I’m very conscious of mailbox overload and I don’t think I’ve quite found the balance yet of ‘sales’ type emails for SEG products and getting any writing and Podcasts out, but we’ll get there. I think it’ll end up being something along the lines of the Podcast arriving Sunday evening, in time for the Monday commute, a SEG sales email Tuesday/Wednesday and then this ‘Horizon Scan’ on the Friday.

What’s the idea with Horizon Scan? I want it to be a kind of roundup of the things that have been on my radar that week and why. I fully expect some of the topics to roll into the Podcast, but we’re limited to an hour there and I may want to clarify or go deeper about some things. I’m not expecting, nor do I do I want everyone to be on the same page as me about what I discuss, but I think it’s important we speak openly about what we think. I’ll be adding an ‘audio read through’ version each time too, as that was very popular in my piece on Integrity.

So we’ll begin here.

I’ll be adding screenshots just as starting points and Twitter is easy for that. I don’t necessarily follow or agree with what’s happening in the screenshot, it’s usually just going to be the easiest way to sum up what’s going on. I will comment on this one though as I think he’s a polarising figure and I understand why. I’m distrustful of all politicians, I understand what their world is and what it takes to be successful. One major factor is the need to appeal to the ‘everyman’. As a result they will pretend to be something they’re not, I respect JRM for not doing that. He knows he’s far removed from most of our every day lives and has little in common with the ‘man on the street’, so he’s himself, despite the ridicule that brings. I think that’s positive. While we’re on the subject of JRM, many people are unaware of the book his father co-authored ‘The Sovereign Individual’, one that I would recommend to everyone reading this, especially considering some of the changes our societies are going through.

So to the subject in hand, which may have been overtaken by events at the time of reading. Earlier this week some civil servants in the Home Office stated they will not “just sit back and take” the Rwanda deal and new small boats bill, and may strike if forced to implement measures they believe are unlawful." Now I don’t want to get bogged down with the actual issue they’re threatening to strike about which I’ll assume will split the readership of this piece, I want to concentrate on their threat.

I have to say that in this case I think JRM sums this up very well and I think I agree with him.

'If you don't accept the government policy that you are paid to implement, you don't go on strike, you leave...and if you don't leave, you should be fired.”

The civil servants have every right to not complete work that they personally believe is illegal, immoral, whatever. If it’s against their principles, fine, but you cannot hold an elected government to ransom over those beliefs, no matter what you think of that government. Our system is imperfect, but MPs are elected to deliver on the promises made to the public that got them elected, they are in theory the will of the people personified. We know in practice it’s not as clear cut as that, but the unelected cannot choose to overrule what MPs are trying to implement (I’m not talking about rightful protest here, which is done outside of your employment.) If we normalise this as something that is available as an option, the system fails. We have seen similar behaviour from staff at large corporations, where employees take it upon themselves to try and strong arm or shame their employers into prioritising employee beliefs over company policy. It does‘t end well for those companies and we have seen push back by the owners with stronger characters to good effect. This isn’t a mistake that can be made with the civil service, there is more than profit margin on the line. If you cannot do, what is a serious job, for whatever reason, you leave it or you should be fired. I’ll add that it’s possible - as with many things politics - there is more to this story. Hugh thinks there may be something happening with the Union the Civil Service belong to and this is about pressuring for a pay rise. Very possibly, but it could still set dangerous precedent.

We stay in politics for the next bit I’m afraid, but we move over to the dark arts that politicians must master if they are to succeed, which is what makes them inherently untrustworthy. I’ll start by recommending Steven Barrett as a source for understanding what’s going on here - click on the photo to get to his Twitter profile. He’s giving non partisan legal opinion on what’s going that’s devoid of fluff.

The set up for this is that there’s going to be an inquiry into the way the Government handled Covid. Regardless of what you think about that - I have many thoughts as I’m sure you do - I think even if it’s just as an after action review, getting the facts and learning lessons seems like a good idea. As part of of this process a retired Judge has been appointed to commit to a Judicial Review of all the information available and has instructed the Government to make available to her, everything they have. However, the Government have refused to do so in a complete manner, going so far as to now sue the Judge to stop it happening, but adding the note that - it is not an urgent matter - there’s literally a box on the ‘I’m going to sue you ‘ form that asks this.

So why would the Government not want to have all the information possible available for the inquiry? Well the line they’re taking is that it includes the private WhatsApp group chats of ministers and it’s not in the public interest and damages national security to have them out in the open. The national security line, yeah maybe, but it is the job of the Judicial Review to establish that and then decide what’s released to the public. But she must see the chats to decide that. The privacy line holds up nicely until you remember that this current Government is pushing to be able to de-encrypt YOUR private chats!

What’s closer to reality I think is if the public see what they were saying to each other whilst managing Covid, then a lot of careers are going in the toilet. I’m not saying that in any kind of armchair quarterback way, I mean light will be shone on a lot of the scheming and manoeuvring that was taking place at the time. The current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak being one of the prime candidates for toilet time, as it’s well known that he was very focussed on ousting the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson and being his replacement. Careers over national security and health is not a good look.

The interesting part is that having already been flushed, Boris Johnson is only too keen to hand over his phones and notebooks. This should tell you everything you need to know about what’s in them.

I don’t know what the outcome of this will be. I suspect the reason the Government are saying this isn’t urgent is to buy thinking time, cause as many dramas as possible and hope the whole thing, including whatever result the inquiry comes to is discredited, and everyone gets to walk away with the minimum stench of shit. It’s certainly going to snowball for a while.

We’ll end the first Scan with a fun one and something that interests me. The ‘Chadification’ of Mark Zuckerburg.

Over the past couple of years Zuck has moved from the stereotypical withered, veggie, tech founder nerd, to something more interesting to me, though perhaps to a different stereotype, the Chad, meat hunter, BJJ bro!

He’s no longer a vegetarian, now only eating meat that he has killed himself. This happens quite often with people who decide that vegetarianism isn’t giving them the health benefits they want, but they don’t want to support factory farming and the like. Getting into hunting allows you to provide yourself with a lot of meat, less animals die and when they do, it’s generally selected animals who will soon start the slow fade to what in nature is usually a pretty grim death.

He’s become physically fit and very capable, recently entering and winning a Brazilian Ju Jitsu competition. Above we see him taking on the annual CrossFit workout ‘Murph’, with a really respectable time. He’s also been seen on ranges getting firearms training, it’s all great to see.

Obviously I’m biased in being happy to see him doing these things, it aligns with my world view. I’ve been a Carnivore solid for the last 18 months and on and off for 2 years before that. I know what the benefits are, although I recognise it’s not for everyone. I think you should be physically able to look after yourself and those around you. That requires you to be strong, robust, skilled and fit. The Sin Eaters Guild community understand this and it’s great to have Zuck out there moving against the common practices of his industry. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a turd in some respects which I won’t go into, but I see signs even those may be shifting.

That’ll do for this week, the gym is calling and the sun is out. For those of you local to Hereford, there’s a great event happening that I’ll be attending if you want a high five and to tell me I’m talking shit. Hugh will be there too, so you can chest poke him. Check the SEG IG for details.

Cheers,

Gaz