Pretending to Care about the Future

The Peter Principle is always on show at international political events, and at international sporting events.

Both types of events tend to be highly competitive, even when they are not meant to be particularly competitive at all.

Perhaps you are familiar with purportedly friendly sporting matches known as exhibition games.

Even without prizes, incompetence in sport is rarely rewarded other than as a learning experience.

In politics, incompetence is often rewarded.

There are no exhibition games in politics though there are usually a considerable number of imperial exhibitionists on display, whether as naked or under-dressed emperors or charlatans in business suits.

COP26 has been officially proposed to begin at the end of this month, on Halloween.

The pageantry of ceremony and hype will be followed by the spectacular collapse of global stability, environmentally as well as politically.

All well-informed people have been able to predict that outcome for a considerable time now. 

If this is your first experience of Trickery Today, welcome.

If this is your second visit, or even the latest of many visits for you, perhaps you enjoy reading messages of welcome every time you arrive somewhere.

Or you may have ignored the official message of welcome the first time you virtually arrived here, or you did not notice it.

Alternatively, you may be interested to know whether the official message of welcome has been improved or expanded since your earlier experiences of Trickery Today.

Of course, you are welcome to read whatever you like here, as many times as you wish, as long as you have authorised access, and you are adequately polite, and you therefore do not intend to steal anything or otherwise act indecently.

Who else has welcomed you to the future today?

If you are familiar with political thievery, you will know that trickster politicians often pretend to care about a future they will not personally experience.  They even pretend to care about other experiences they will not personally experience, if they think it will be good for their public image.

Such politicians do not really care about anything but their own ambitions.

They do not even care about the scientific method, basic research, insightful works of fiction, and the lessons of history.

They are frightened by science and it various branches.

They are not even particularly well acquainted with the biodiversity within various species of trees and shrubs.

Charlatan politicians believe the purpose of applied science is to advance their political careers, and possibly also their post-politics personal advancement.

They do nothing to advance public understanding of the connections between international sport, international political economy and geopolitics.

They would much rather focus on making laws against purported indecent exposure and other forms of apparent exhibitionism than address imminent dangers of long-term, global consequence. 

To trickster politicians, making laws to enable some people to continue making vast sums of money, even at the expense of life itself, is regarded as good politics, and even good economics.

Trickster politicians have no interest whatsoever in overcoming their own biased views.  Nor are they interested in helping other people to understand the truth about the world.

That is why political trickery continues to happen every day. 

The tricksters treat political trickery as normal.  They want you to believe it is normal.  They even want you to believe political trickery is acceptable.

Yet caring about the future is not about duping people into working excessively for short-term successes, or even short-term failures.

Trickery takes many forms, whether financial, political, sexual, or otherwise.

If you care only about your own future, perhaps you are a trickster yourself.

Tricksters, of any variety, often view themselves as successes rather than as evil.  They often delude themselves into believing their deceptions are justifiable.

Fortunately, there are many good things to do in the world, particularly with the intention of improving the world in some way.

Yet attempting to do good can cause all sorts of problems unless the associated activities are properly informed by history, science and the facts of current circumstances.

Please be aware that addressing trickery is never safe.

Tricksters regard well-informed, kind people as enemies, particularly if those people have power, influence, authority, popularity and/or surplus money. 

But most anti-trickery activists do not have power or influence or authority or popularity or surplus money. 

If you already regard yourself as an anti-trickery advocate, perhaps you prefer describing yourself in another sort of way.

Perhaps you believe you promote human rights and/or environmental protection and/or good fun.

What are actually you doing to stop trickery from happening, and how?

Perhaps you do not believe it is your responsibility to address trickery properly at all.

But who is does have that responsibility, in your view, and where, and why, how, and with what results?

Many of the people actively attempting to address trickery cannot do so publicly or directly.  It would be too dangerous. That is why their privacy and security must be properly respected, by everyone.

You may believe you have the power to act quite publicly and/or directly.  You may possibly have the official and/or unofficial power to do so and/or you may delude yourself into believing you are relatively safe.

But nothing in public is actually very safe at all.

Many experiences in private are not particularly safe, either.

Addressing any sort of danger requires a culture of safety but also the accurate assessment of risks.

How have you assessed the dangers of nationalism and imperialism?

How does your well-informed philanthropy help to encourage quality journalism and quality democracies? 

What is your acquaintance with good historians, good scientists and other good researchers?

How have you been comparing exhibitions, pageants, festivals, fairs, conventions and processions from the past with conferences and protests of the past, present and future?

How do you compare an exciting spectacle with a spectacular failure and a simple act of kindness and care?

The most corrupt people with power have long been able to maintain their power through the denial of wrongdoing.

Such people often maintain power through the services of expensive, and possibly equally corrupt, lawyers.

Being threatened by an aggressive, overpaid lawyer is much the same as being bullied by a thug in the pay of a crime boss or being bullied by a cruel bureaucrat with no qualms about pursuing an unjust policy.

Perhaps you have paid a lawyer to act aggressively on your behalf from time to time.  You may even be such a lawyer and/or a cruel bureaucrat and/or a crime boss.

There is much political wrongdoing and other nastiness happening, all over the world.

The best way to report it, at least initially, is by point out the obvious to the oblivious.

Where have you identified and stopped trickery today?

Where have you reported that achievement, and who, if anyone, has attempted to stop you from doing so?

Many investigations into, and reports about, corruption actually have the opposite effect than apparently intended.  

That is mainly due to the fact that reports about alleged corruption actually raise the public profile of the allegedly corrupt.

The ordinary public, unfortunately, tends to vote for familiarity, not integrity or even credibility.

You may or may not find situations quite surprising when people disagree with you.

Perhaps you prefer people to agree with you, even if they would prefer to prove you wrong. 

Perhaps you constantly seek a stamp of approval.

How do you prefer to assess perceptions, and why?

How well do you conduct research, and for what reasons?

Perhaps you are seeking a guide to assist you in this digital vicinity. 

Pretenses and pretensions are certainly distasteful to the volunteers around here.

The ordinary public tends to prefer information about trickery rather than civility, as you may already be aware.

Real philanthropy always reflects quality volunteering and beautiful civility, not trickery.

Only truly enlightened persons are aware that real philanthropy is necessary. 

Real philanthropy is adequately reflective of the truth.

If you believe you are preventing corruption, how do you know?

How do you usually ascertain local appropriateness and local inappropriateness? 

How do you usually ascertain global appropriateness and global inappropriateness?

If you are seeking to improve your philanthropy, you may especially do so by improving your skills as a citizen journalist of the most necessary variety, particularly in your local vicinity.

Yet a clear understanding of the global picture is also necessary.

When people believe they care about the future yet fail to understand the facts associated with substantial problems, they are deluded.

How do you know when apparent successes are actually failures?

How have you already attempted to improve your metacognition?

What have been your experiences of promotional and fundraising pursuits?

How does your philanthropy help to prevent gullibility, charlatanism, corruption and incompetence?

How do you prefer to contribute to political philanthropy and proper policies? 

If you are not making those contributions, you are obviously only pretending to care about the future, at least if you claim to do so at all.

Perhaps you would rather be honest and state your uncaring attitude rather than pretend to care.

Perhaps you care more about recreations of medieval pageants and/or mystery plays and/or 20th century beauty pageants.

Perhaps you would rather recreate a medieval tournament or an ancient sporting competition or another vaguely authentic historical re-enactment.

What are your most consistent and altruistically effective contributions to real philanthropy, if any actually exist?

You may or may not have experienced an upbringing reflective of philanthropinism.  No governments have supported that primary type of education over recent centuries, and nor have most private suppliers of education.

Most people, of any age and cultural background, apparently prefer to play games and/or watch games.

Have you received any education, training and/or mentoring through a Philanthropinum, at any age?

For mature, suitably caring adults, the current equivalent quaternary institution is the International Training Centre for the Harmonious Interplay of Beauty, Understanding and Magnificence.

Eligible students may be of any nationality, citizenship and legal status.

What is your acquaintance with good journalists, and how do you know they are good?

How do you define pleasant journalism?

How do you define the public interest?

What are your most consistent and altruistic contributions to the practice of public interest journalism?

Perhaps you have an interest in the history of Adelaide.

Perhaps you have an interest in the history of newspapers and their distribution. 

What do you know about the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London?

What do you know about the Crystal Palace?

What do you know about the Handel Festival in that venue? 

What do you know about Handel in history?

Perhaps you are more interested in recreating a Roman triumph than helping humanity triumph over global warming.

The Great Exhibition represented the globalisation of fossil fuel consumption.  Arrogant people tricked themselves into believing they had triumphed over nature.

Perhaps you believe the primary investigators associated with Trickery Today are intent on tricking you.

Perhaps you believe they are associated with the Marquis de Tabloid.

In fact, all the investigators associated with Trickery Today are completely independent, even though they are usually based in Adelaide in South Australia and work from the Adelaidezone Digital Arts Quarter.

What do you know about the Great London Exposition of 1862?

How do you usually compare events, trade systems, legal systems, financial systems, transport systems, political systems, various fashions, and infrastructure projects, including temporary ones?

How do you usually compare metropolitan areas with non-metropolitan areas?

How do you usually compare metropolitan areas with each other?

How do you usually compare administrative divisions with each other?

Adelaide is where the Marquis de Tabloid developed his News Crap empire in the 1950s. 

The Adelaidezone is not an empire though it does provide suitable homes and occupations for several robotic elephants.  

The robotic elephants have the ability to converse in classical Latin, in both verse and prose.  They also have the ability to investigate controversies quite carefully.

None of the investigators and investors associated with Trickery Today have inherited media organisations from one or both parents, or from anyone else for that matter.

Trickery Today has nothing to do with the tabloid press or with anything else unjustly depressing.

What is your knowledge of the Delhi Durbar of 1877 and the Great Famine of 1876-1878?

What is your knowledge of poverty in 19th century London?

What is your knowledge of poverty and hunger in various parts of the world today?

How do you usually compare the management of administrative divisions with the management of sovereign states?

You may or may not already regard yourself as one of the official, leading, properly registered patrons of political pleasantness, in any part of the world.

How enlightened are your political activities, and how do you know?

Perhaps you wish to experience a masque and/or attend a masquerade ball and/or stop wearing a surgical mask in public.

Perhaps you wish to meditate at the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya.

Perhaps you wish to reflect upon the purpose of the Franco-British Exhibition of 1908 or the Imperial International Exhibition of 1909 or the Japan-British Exhibition of 1910 or the Festival of Empire of 1911.

Perhaps you wish to reflect upon the purpose of the colonialism and colonial exhibitions.

Perhaps you wish to reflect on the British Empire Exhibition of 1924-25 and the associated Pageant of Empire, though you may possibly be more interested in the Adelaide Christmas Pageant.

Whether you are associated with Adelaide or not, you may require a few enlightening references and a few enlightening questions to help you tackle trickery wherever you locate it. 

Are you familiar with the tricks of Ben Franklin?

Are you familiar with the poetry of Friedrich von Matthisson?

Are you familiar with the music of Ludwig van Beethoven?

Are you familiar with the work of the global Mozarty Party and/or the Revolutionary Climatological Needlepoint Committee?

Are you well acquainted with the amazing and ancient?

Do you regard yourself as a successful practitioner of well-informed investing? 

If so, what do you know about gaining and maintaining a quality following?

Are you sure you are capable of distinguishing between marketing tricks and reality?

Are you sure you know how to tell the difference between the satirical and the serious?

If you think you know who is pretending to care about the future, what are you doing with that knowledge?

Who is holding future generations captive, and why?

How do you attempt to learn about such matters through art? 

Perhaps you already know why COP26 will inevitably be crap.

You may even think you know something about climate justice.

But do you really care about the future?