AUSTRALIA BREAKS APART: THE FIRST TAKES

  We form a covenant.  They came like flocks of birds in a dark night, and formed here for an instance.  In the surreal world that was not the real world, the world seen through the lens of Australian media, he evoked, provoked, they came like a storm of winter birds, trees overhang, dark whispers occur beneath the mossy trails, fireflies line the banks, a whispering continues, an echo chamber, an amplification device, and all, here, we welcome you; and in that instance all was clear. This shadow boxing, these frail intents, this country as it mourned its dead, this future that was already passing, also passed, this species, these dreaded fights, the blood, their blood, as if they mattered, as if any of it mattered, why the birds nestled in the early dawn, why the lake wa so silent before daybreak, why this moment in history was so forlorn, why people buried themselves ever deeper in their own discontents, disengaged from the political process, without hope of redemption ...

  The future could see the world's human data, delivered through the rising power and reach of artificial intelligence, in the hands of a powerful few - a recipe for a dystopian tomorrow populated by "hacked humans," says Yuval Noah Harari.  "To hack a human being is to get to know that person better than they know themselves. And based on that, to increasingly manipulate you." Climate change and transgender issues, or transphobia, gripped the Australian election campaign, as if any of it had anything to do with how most people lived. Most or at least many of those suddenly expressing their concern for transgender people had never met one, never slept with one, and were propelled by the same hysteria over bias that had transfigured the gay marriage debate and the triumphalism of the left, allowing no room for differences of opinion, or for religious or fundamentalist views.  The disrespect only ran one way; and ended up in a corridor or mirror maze of conflictin...

  He dreamt of his life being made into a madness by a deranged Health Minister. Hang on, that was reality.  The election campaign was surreal. Much of what was happening was surreal.  He didn't like the commentary. He didn't like being surrounded. He didn't like being watched. We fly through open windows. We watch at winter's door. If there was anything to be caught at in these strange times, the rattling of windows, the gusts of dark air, the clarion voices that were merely rattles in a sea of leaves, if there was anything in the here and now that could be surrendered to a higher cause, all of it moved upon the water and was still; and took form, and shook with anger, a kind of gestalt peace that blanketed everything, well that was Australia today, surreal, utterly surreal. "I'm surprised people aren't more angry," Anthony at the café said, and it was true. Locked up. Imprisoned. Jobs and businesses destroyed. Their fellows wrested to the ground. Pep...