Anarchy is the route to fair trade?

There is a long history of curiosity about whether regulation of markets is necessary.

One thing that social anarchists don't like to discuss is what happens to money - many will advocate smashing the corporations, but when you dig deep, anarchy in practise is remarkable aligned with the modern-right's rhetoric of free market capitalism.

'Rhetoric' is an important phrase. Few really believe that the neo-conservative model of 'free markets' are in anyway free or fair for all. The models, trade agreements, and practises are designed to ensure that the existing wealthy states can exploit the emerging markets for the benefits of the companies that residue in their own borders.

Reading an article I the New Scientist (19-26 December 2015) made me think about what a truly free market would represent . Discussing the deep web they interviewee reported that their shopping bit had never been swindled. Most accept that in the absence of regulation and enforcement of rules and codes of conduct , individuals and markets will descend into opportunistic exploitation, fraud and felony.

But that was not what is happening. In the legal vacuum of the deep Internet , there seems to be little advantage in cheating and rules are not required. Perhaps it is an experiment we can finally have the courage to take in a non-virtual world .

Promiscuous spirituality defies religion

There is a lot of focus on god, religion, atheism, science and who is right or wrong at the moment.

Instagram is full of 'religion is stupid' and 'Jesus is the only way to live' and 'Muslims are evil' content at the moment [https://instagram.com/p/_OJ9Spt7rs/] Last night I was chatting to a friend who has come up against the contrast between her own fluid views on spirituality and a concrete wall of Christian doctrine followed by another friend. 

Personally I like the word 'agnostic'.

Across the span of post-civilised human communities we have always manifested the unknown as a God of some sorts - an overarching layer to prevent the madness experienced by never ceasing to contemplate the true fluidity and intemporalness of existence . But I can't accept that one version is any more valid than another. They all do the job of smoothing the edges of the mind to keep us functioning within our social groups.

Of course our social groups are increasingly diversified, and as a result our religious awareness, our spiritual vernacular, is also. So here's to agnosticism: a healthy way to start the day.

Happiness and freedom, a delicate affair .

This morning I woke up alone and refreshed. My son and daughter are elsewhere, the house is peaceful and I have a happy body thanks to some rehab fitness work a bike ride and some latenight, weed-enhanced yoga.

The washing up is done, the house is clean and I have friends and family. There is money in the bank. 

For late breakfast I am having a vegan almond and choc-chip shortbread and speciality black tea, both of which were given to me at no cost by people I would call friends.

I've got time to spend daydreaming, the sun is coming up and creative and professional projects to attend to.

Counting the blessings.

Why I hate my job (it's not what you think)

#work

There are some days, days like these, where I hate my job.

Not doing it, I love doing it, but the fact that it exists.

My job exists because of unnecessary things. Because we all just keep consuming. Because everyone's gotta have one.

Think about it. Remember the scenario for most of your gigs.

We want a website
Why?

And then the uncomfortable silence, or the vague marketing justification, or the childish 'because they've got one'. Ask most clients what people will want to do at their website and you'll get no valid responses. 'post a comment', 'contact us', 'join our network', 'subscribe'.

I make an exception. Art and communities. Art and community sites don't need a wider goal. They just are. And, to be honest, they don't need my help. Most art and community sites are either improved by the lack of usability (art) or will get along very well without it thank you (community).

People are paying larger and larger sums of cash into my bank account for me to tell them something obvious and then ignore me anyway. And to what end? A large number of digital interactions are unsatisfactory at best and impossible at worst. IT systems are the cause of customer service failures around the world. Online services are ineffective and insecure. People are becoming isolated and bloated sitting behind screens waiting for the world to arrive.

If you need me to tell you how to make it work, then it probably isn't necessary after all, and if it isn't necessary then it is wasteful consumerism and we are better off without it.

There are no usability consultants in the poorest industries. Farmers in rural Africa tend not to hire consultants to show them the most effective use of a hoe. Consult with your users, your customers, your staff. Build what you need, not what others have.

Stockholm. Land of many stairs.

I'm in Stockholm.

Here's all the cool stuff I've found so far.

The 'Collector's Victory Hotel'.
http://www.thecollectorshotels.se/en/victory-hotel/

Fucking amazing. not too expensive. every corner is packed with nautical antiques so it's homely not hipster (I hate minimalist hipster hotels with uncomfortable chairs and a lick of jazz-paint). I have three key criteria for picking hotels when I have to travel: 1) shower. 2) windows that open. 3) near some where I want to be.

The shower is lush. Hugh-head, pretty tiles, no curtain.
The wooden frame windows open onto the cobbled Old Town streets below.
Gamla Stan (Old Town) is right near the main train station via a bridge that takes you past the Parliament and Royal Palace buildings - so that's nice. On the walk back after a long long day of corporate wanking on Friday night I could see across the river to the autumn-tree'd hills as a low, golden crescent moon hung in the sky.
This shit matters.

Four super-swish but hip restuarants make up the downstairs (btw, the breakfast is healthy and buffet style and included in the price). The only one with a table free on the night I arrived was in the meat-is-awesome 'Duret'. Just over a month ago I would have gorged on what I can safely guess is the most succulent serving of sinew and flesh but as I turned vegan in September it was only the irony which was delicious. In the streets around the hotel are billions (not really) of restaurants, cafes and bars. I failed to find a vegan option on the first night, but Friday (thanks Moon) gave me a psych-rock bar with mexican beer and huge and tasty vegan burritos.

Stockholm is loads of islands linked by bridges with natural waterways in between (not like Amsterdam or Venice where the canals are constructed). Gamla Stan leads to Södermalm which apparently is where the hipsters live. Saturday is a no work day, so I strolled across the island towards the footbridge that crosses out from Tantolunden Park (nice enough - grassy hills, people walking dogs, trees and stuff) to Liljeholmen. On the map it crosses over an uninhabited bit of island and I was hoping to set up there to do some work/plane/train correcting yoga. Just before the footbridge the hillside is covered in little cabins with gardens. I can't work out if they are homes or ultra-allotments, but they cheered me up and made me want to live in one.

Turns out you can't get off the bridge onto the island (boat access only) so, ignoring the humanity of it all (bridge, people etc.) I doggedly saluted the sun anyway. Stockholm nearly got me down. Not one other person until now had remotely coloured in their hair and everyone just seemed to spend their time working or jogging. But just as I had found the vegan-rockers last night, my obstinate stretching was rewarded and I spotted a zombie nation sticker someone had left on the bridge exactly where I had stopped. Evidently there is an underground and it's the kind that likes to sit on bridges and leave zombie stickers behind.

On the Liljeholmen side, the riverbank is preserved going south as parkland. It's a nice walk/jog route and there are (yay!) wooden adult crossfit gyms along the route. Complete with tractor tyres and everything. I had a little bat-hang after all that concrete yoga and chatted to a family of swans.

Back on Södermalm the east side of the island includes a stunning church (no, really) on a hill called Sofia Kirke. Stockholm is full of churches, but I'm pretty sure this one is super-special. The lines of the building and the view from the hill are worth crossing the bridge from Old Town for. Inside it's quite a 'feminine' church anyway (a central domed area and almost art-deco fixtured with a pastel shades mural of natural motifs behind the alter). All the more so as there was a Christening taking place. Heartwarming and then gut-wrenching as I discovered a really emotional sculpture just outside the church (https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undret). Hit me in all sorts of ways and I had a little cry.

Anyway. Charging on, the Goddess granted me a pretty boy with a cigarette on the steps of Klippgarten who I resisted but gave me enough pause to turn around and linger and realise the incredible view of the church from that angle. Perfect spot for photo-hunters. I was rewarded for my chastity with some radishes that bizarrely were strewn on the ground beneath a tree at the foot of the Frans Schartaus trappor (more stairs) that led me (kind of relinquished control of the journey by this point - see what happens when you get involved with religion) up to some really cute and infinitely photographable old wooden painted houses on top of the hill. Some MORE STEPS took me back to the Renstiermas gata and the riverside.

The Photography Museum that had lured me out here in the first place when I'd spotted it on my littel paper tourist map seemed hardly worth the entry fee after all I'd seen en route, so I skipped back over the bridge to Gamla Stan and let myself do a little shopping.

Stora Nygatan has:

1 Death Metal record shop
1 wanky record shop with good live in stores
1 veggie/vegan buffet
1 comic book shop with LOADS of rare issues.
that vegan burrito psych-rock place

... and shit loads of other shops that you'd find in the cooler parts of the cooler towns.

Travelogue over and out. I'm booked into the sauna in the hotel in a bit and that's pretty much all I've done.

map.