Gillard as PM and The (Trans) Human Spirit

Beleaguered by a run of poor opinion polls and lacking support within the parliamentary caucus (with an allegedly abrasive personality), Kevin Rudd stood down as Prime Minister and was replaced by Julia Gillard. There has been a predictable wave of enthusiasm for Australia's first female Prime Minister, and in the first few days she has made a number of popular policy statements (not moving into the Lodge until elected in her own right, support for a carbon tax rather than an ETS, wanting a "sustainable population", affirming rather than swearing an oath to office). I predict in the next day or so she'll have an agreement with the mining companies as well. The only remaining liability for Federal Labor after this is Conroy holding the Ministry of government approved information. Finally, an insightful and predictive article by Greg Milne points out the serious problems Abbot is going to have with Gillard.

Last Sunday gave the address at the Unitarians on The Evolution of the Human Spirit, which is perhaps better understood as the development of human ideas. With broad sociological brushstrokes I took the opportunity to reconstruct the better elements of materialist theories of structured social development with concerns of the means of communication and mode of consciousness. In September it I'll be speaking at the Melbourne summit for The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence on "Social Formations in a Transhumanist World".