One of the most serious problems facing the world today is the over-abundance of unreliable information, a condition sometimes referred to as info-obesity. Not good. In Too Big To Know, David Weisberger of Harvard calls this a crisis of information. And it seems technology, in particular the internet, may be to blame
I started as a journalist just as hot metal printing was being banged out of publishing companies in the late 1970s — an era now referred to as the Golden Age of journalism. Over the ensuing 40 years, the world of journalism has largely been kind to me, but with all the good has been much bad. I’ve had ringside seats for much of the worst that journalism has had to offer: Fleet Street malpractice and corrupt journalism of the type that led to the phone-hacking revelations
In 2012, 4.2 million Australians (18.5% of the population) were estimated as having a disability. However, as Vik Finkelstein, an English self-advocate has commented, the rest of the population could be labelled as ‘not yet disabled’, for disability is something that can affect each of us at some point in our life course
When Sleepers, Wake!: Technology and the Future of Work was published in 1982, my predictions about the potential impact of the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) Revolution were regarded as wildly exaggerated and hence not taken seriously. Thirty years later they read like a statement of the blindingly obvious and could now be dismissed as, ‘Well, it was always inevitable, wasn’t it?’
‘Equality’ dropped off Australia’s political agenda in the 21st century. Both sides of politics recognise that winning elections depends on winning votes from ‘aspirationals’. So progressive taxation was dropped, education is more stratified in Australia than the UK or US, and governments and political parties have abandoned ‘needs based’ policies
The Australian colonies began very unpromisingly as a convict society built on Aboriginal dispossession. Nevertheless, robust elected institutions soon developed. There was responsible government by the 1850s, full manhood suffrage by the 1860s, the secret ballot (a local invention) and payment of members
The term ‘influenza’ is often used loosely to describe respiratory illness caused by a wide range of viruses, including respiratory syncytical virus, parainfluenza viruses, rhinoviruses and adenoviruses as well as influenza viruses themselves. Although all of these viruses can cause significant disease, true influenza has a special place in the world of communicable diseases for two reasons
On a physical level Homo sapiens (Latin: ‘wise man’) have changed little over the last 20,000 years. Nonetheless, there has been a tremendous evolution in our lifestyle (at least for the majority), and this has been the consequence of a multitude of significant discoveries, inventions and revelations that plaster the mosaic of human history
Otitis media (OM) refers to middle ear infection, and is a highly prevalent condition in the Australian Aboriginal population. While OM occurs with different degrees of severity, it invariably presents a serious healthcare problem, with significant medical, psychological and social impacts
I received my first inkling of my own sexuality at about age 9. I was always precocious. In those days, it was not a very good discovery to find that one was homosexual. The afternoon tabloids were full of stories of entrapment and arrests of gay men in Sydney. They included some famous visiting artists, like Claudio Arrau, the great concert pianist