Gangs or Collapse - what do you think is more scary?

Unless you have been living under a rock, you are probably already tiring of the same old same old election year sound bites coming from too many of our political hopefuls. What you won't hear coming out of their mouths is any challenge to, or questioning of, the sustainability of our business as usual approach which is increasingly hitting more than a few real and proverbial potholes and road closures.

Dr Catherine Knight has an excellent article on Newsroom exploring the probability that not only is this approach heading us towards collapse but, more worryingly, that collapse may already be underway. Our propensity to view problems in a silo rather than as interrelated issues, clouds our judgement as to how serious the situation is.

She touches on a number of crisis that we have suffered and could suffer, in some cases again and again, and questions our ability to withstand them. This Australian article on The Conversation throws up the very type of scenario that could be a tipping point - synchronised harvest failures across the globe leading to a global food famine.

Given the discourse (so far) in the current election cycle, it is unlikely that we will see anything but a continuation of 'business as usual, i.e., a 'sticking plaster' approach to dealing with issues and 'can kicking' the hard stuff down the road. Wouldn't it be refreshing and heartening to hear politician asking questions such as those raised by Dr Knight or Gareth Hughes in his recent article suggesting that after 40 years, maybe it is time to reboot the economic system. As he points out, the economy is simply an operating system just like we have on our smartphones and computers.