When an interconnected global civilisation has a crisis, then that is serious for all humanity and potentially for humans as a species. Here we are now with multiple dangerous situations developing. Before we get into them individually, let me say: the only way to handle that in a democratic society is via a national debate. There won't be any easy answers, so we need struggle for a consensus on how to spread the pain.
Climate Change
This can only be addressed by the whole world. We need to do our bit so that we can ask everyone else to do their bit. The key is plentiful cheap low carbon energy, here and everywhere else. Currently the effort has to be on electrification. Changing energy systems has a cost that has to be paid. We also need to pump CO₂ out of the atmosphere to sequester it. All of this requires energy which costs money. These costs need to be accurately presented to the voters. As with the other issues, we need to combat deliberately misleading arguments, and one of the most common is the idea that Australia can make a significant contribution by ourselves.
This problem cannot be addressed with the urgency we would like, but nor can it be ignored.
Artificial Intelligence
AI is just a computer program. People are going to run it on their own computers, and that will cover the majority of ordinary use cases. There is not much government can do to control this without getting very invasive.
At the other end of the spectrum, very powerful AI systems with wide and up to date knowledge and strong STEM skills are going to be a crucial national resource. Most of this need will be met by privately owned data centres, but these will be very vulnerable to physical attack. There needs to be a big system with complete government control, under a mountain, with good electricity and cooling.
AI is a huge threat to security, but also the unavoidable tool for defence. However the crisis from AI is that it is another mammoth transition in how the economy will function, even more than electrification and climate rehabilitation.
Social Structure Tipping Point
Those crises are hitting as another large change is taking place. This will be more controversial, but bear with me.
Evolution has gifted humans with a few fundamental modes of living. A basic one has girls learning from their mother and "inheriting" their mother's status to a significant degree. High status women then want the most valuable men to pick their daughters based on status -- they don't want their daughters to have to compete with other women based on physical attributes that might be indicators of genetic quality. High status women thus use their power to restrict female dress codes.
Between 1890 and WWI we see the introduction of female education to age 14. Putting teenage girls together who have no established status relationship is a brutal business. The combination of that with the rise of literacy and movies pushed us out of the conservative mode into Anything Goes after WWI. The consequences have been slowly playing out since, with the added impetus of contraception in the 1960s, then the Internet and social media.
I could guess where this is heading, but let's just note that while some women are talking about achieving equality with men, many have moved past that and started saying "70% of men are toxic". Even though women are ahead of men on average for education and many well paid jobs, they still want to marry up, and that is impossible overall. Then we have an increase in inequality and women don't want to take the status hit from living in affordable housing.
Many men are staring down the barrel of never having children or the comfort of married life. Evolution has crafted a response to this recurring predicament: roll the dice and go to war, internally or externally. This was on brutal display in the early months of the Ukraine war.
Plan
From some in the Left and in the Right we hear that these problems can't be solved in a democracy. This is wrong. Present the problems. Let difficult solutions get discussed. It is amazing what can be achieved when the voters get behind tough jobs that need to be done.
We can debate this in the comments if you like. It is hard to know how many real readers I have when AI training is doing a lot of the access to my blog in this post-blog world.
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