The Clever Country

INTRODUCTION

There are many points for discussion and contributing ideas here. Choose the ones you would like to talk and write about.

It is often said that Australia must become the Clever Country, in order to survive in the globalised world because: -
1. We have lost industrial strength we have to compete in global markets with manufactured goods.
2. Mineral and agricultural exports are at the mercy of fluctuating markets and cannot be relied on to support a growing population in the future. Natural disasters and increasing salination make our agriculture vulnerable.
3. We must pay some time for our growing foreign debt and imported products.

The Clever Country is generally supposed to make up for it's lacking areas by all its Clever People in science and invention, particularly in information technology. Not-Very-Clever People even say that the future will need Knowledge, and seem to dismiss the need for food, products and services.

Question Set 1. (Cover this set quickly, in about two minutes.)

What areas of life are going to need Clever People, in order for Australia to be a Clever Country?

Certainly we are going to need to encourage as many Clever People as we can to help us overcome the problems ahead, and in more than IT, where we are slipping rather than gaining. In politics, economics, solving social problems, production, planning, inventing, discovering, infrastructure, child-rearing, education, health, and not least, Clever People in running their own households with the greatest possible pleasure and least possible waste.

Question 2. What are the problems that are preventing Australians being a Clever People? (List some quickly in about two minutes - considering some of the areas above, and any others.)

Australia has had a fine record in Clever People, who have become great inventors, scientists, thinkers, reformers, writers, statesmen, etc. But very often they have had to go overseas to find support. An analysis of a Bicentenary Celebration book on 200 people who have Made Australia Great showed that ie. 58 of the 200 'great names', nearly 30% were noted in the Bi-Centenary book as having to battle severe resistance to their ideas. Many of the others also faced resistance, which is evident from more detailed biographies. This is not of course only an Australian problem. In 1941 an eminent Australian Neophobia. by Sir James Barrett in 1941 wrote a pamphlet on Neophobia, illustrating how all the world has tended to treat with contempt people who have new ideas, whether they turn out to be geniuses or ratbags. Question. How can we prevent people with ideas and innovations being immediately laughed at or disregarded? Does it matter if 99% of ideas and innovations are no good, if toleration and interest mean that the 1% of Super Ideas can get a fair investigation and if necessary assistance?

Question 3. Elites or everyone? Does it matter if most of the people are 'stupid' - can they rely on the elites at the top to make us a Clever Country, or does everybody need to use their minds? How can Clever People be encouraged, and can all Australians be clever people? Can we rely on a clever elite while the rest of us just go dumb stupid and avoid the pleasures of thinking?

The usual response to "How can Australia become the Clever Country and encourage Clever People" has usually been that the government should provide more money for researchers, inventors and developers of ideas and projects.

How valuable has this 'seed corn' been in encouraging the Clever Country in the past? Can you name clever inventions, discoveries, ideas and products that have been supported by government funding? But today some people especially in universities and other institutions spend large amounts of their lives in applying for grants, and there is a small (and expensive) industry within institutions of back-up support to help applicants for grants. Are there drawbacks to relying on government support? What are they? How could they be avoided?

Question 4. Encouraging clever people through education.
List some ideas.
How does Brightness get squashed in schools, by how the schools are run, the curriculum, the teachers and most of all by fellow students who may persecute any signs of brightness? How can this ethos be changed so that students are glad to have bright class-mates to stimulate them and bring honour to the whole class? Schools that squash. How do bright youngsters get squashed?

Why do attempts to foster Clever Children often fail? How could they succeed? Have you seen the Homer Simpson take-off of schools for Gifted Children, when Bart gets mistakenly sent to one?

Question 5. Rewards for the Clever People. Can we encourage a Clever Country by rewards of money, jobs, honours, status, patronage by private or public sponsors, facilities to work in . . What are the advantages and disadvantages? cf the successes and failures of the Australia Council grants.

Question 6. Intellectual property and litigation - advantages and problems of not sharing good ideas and inventions around. Should there be a community of scholars and freedom of information?

Question 7. Could you have an Institute of Brightness, - or what would you call it, for exercise of minds - like we have an Institute of Sport, and as heavily endowed?

Question 8. The problems of dumbing down the people. Are people being made dumber instead of fulfilling the full potential of their brains and creativenss?

Question 9. Annual prizes of a thousands pounds are awarded internationally for best ideas and projects.
Do you think Australia should have prizes to award for Australian ideas and projects, in competitions that anyone could enter, or that others could make nominations for? Who could sponsor them? What sort of competitions in Australia do you know of already? Send in lists, so that everyone can know about them.

Do you know of other places and groups in Australia that encourage ideas and innovations? Send in your list of addresses and contacts, for others to know about.

Question 10. The circus showman PT Barnum said that anyone who told the public that they were intelligent were out to con them, and should immediately be suspected. Do you think this is true today?
What signs do you see that we are not being a Clever People but just copying silly things that other people do?
What factors are dumbing down people so that they behave stupidly? How do people show they are being dumb in everyday life.

Food for thought - No need to discuss this in the group, but for private thinking: - 'In what ways are you being Clever in your everyday life? What innovative solutions have you found to problems, and what innovative ways have you worked out about how to do things better? Do you always get new plastic bags when you go shopping, and then use them to wrap all your rubbish in to put into a bin that has no need for plastic bags for any but the smelliest squashiest rubbish? Do you fill a kettle to make one cup of tea? Do you…..

This is the major question for the discussion group If we were the Clever Country really, what would we be doing?

There is an Australian Centre for Social Innovations, which tries to encourage everyone, young and old, to have good ideas and innovations. The Web-site URL is www.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas, and ideas can be sent to PO Box 2125 Mt Waverley Vic. 3149.

One of the pages is People They Laughed At www.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/peolafd.htm

There is also a UK site for innovations and ideas, Global Ideas Bank www.globalideasbank.org and you can send your ideas and projects , or other good ideas you think others should know about to their suggestion box sharingLA.org/cgi-win/LAstub.exe?hub=1&net=GIB