Author Archives: martinknox
CLIMATE POLICY DOMINATED BY PIGS.
Animal Farm 2 by Martin Knox is a sequel to Orwell’s 1945 political satire Animal Farm. After the revolution, the pigs subjugate the farm animals by heinous totalitarianism. The story continues in the Cold War on a tropical island controlled by the Social Republic, near the Democratic Union. When the Social Republic withdraws its missiles, the confrontation continues in superpower climate politics and alludes to several contemporary characters and events. Tired from their labour, the animals study English and climate science. They discover the pigs’ climate strategy is self-interested nonsense and plan to oust the pigs. Will a second revolution succeed? Can the animals farm without pig control?
Animal Farm 2 is available on Amazon at https://tinyurl.com/cwrwww6d
Reviews and excerpts are on the blog: martinknox.com
PERFORMING IN FLOW
Time is Gold (2020) is the story of a marathon runner who trains to run ‘in flow’. It is a psychological theory, but in this book Knox has transformed it into a physical theory capable of practical application. The performer requires concentration, automaticity and timeless engagement near the edge of maximum neural impulse speed.
A neuroscientist, Kenneth Chan, has described limitations on scientific observation of performances. Special Relativity, Einstein’s theory, predicts that actions in a faster timeframe are observed as stretched, ‘or dilated’ in time. It is not the first time that prediction of time dilation has preceded practical application, for example in GPS navigation. See Chan, K, 2026, http://kenneth-chan.com/physics/why-relativity -exists/
Although the effect is difficult to distinguish from other performance enhancing techniques, Knox has found possible evidence of time dilation accomplished by performers in various fields, including sport, music and the arts. Exacting training is needed to perform ‘in flow’ and time dilation can bring extra speed ‘for nothing’. At worst, it can do no harm. The book briefly considers possible regulation of performances to exclude training ‘in flow’, to limit rivalry.
The book follows Maxi Fleet’s running career from school, to elite internal competitions, culminating in the Olympics. She acquires advisers, in psychology, physics and neuroscience.
Jack Cram, manages her entourage and applies a philosophical perspective.
The novel Time Is Gold, by Martin Knox, is available on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/4zzkvzcs
Other writing including a list of contents is in my blog archive at martinknox.com
IS TURKEY COMPETITION INDIVIDUAL?
Chance graduated from university as an engineer with too much ambition to wait for his company to promote him. He took risks, until he realised that to progress into management the higher ups had to trust and appreciate his work. As they learned to depend on him, his role expanded. Then he had the misfortune to begin a relationship with Georgina and married her.
She was an administration manager with ambitions of her own and opposed everything he wanted. Frustrated, he changed career path to a PhD at the university, in psychology, where he had more freedom. She moved out and they divorced.
He met Megan a fellow PhD student at the university. She was an elite pole vaulter and he wanted her to use a technique he was studying, phenomenology, to hone her skills. She coached herself using a digital vaulting model they developed. She adopted Heidegger’s phenomenological technique to focus on improvement. Chance helped her to articulate her vaulting experience and identify potential she could exploit. Under his tutelage, she performed in flow at the zenith of her ability, where time dilation was possible.
The novel tells the story of Megan who strives as a schoolgirl in local competitions and then after several years becomes an elite athlete touring international championships with her boyfriend Chance. Their individuality is tested when organisers seek to monetize pole vaulting by restricting her training techniques to result in closer competition and more earnings from this and similar events.
Would she succeed? Her training methods were opposed by rivals and also by less able athletes who couldn’t compete with her. Would the nanny state overreach into trying to limit her performances? Would their training methods be acceptable to the athletics authority at the Olympic Games? How would their work be affected by an outbreak of pandemic flu at the Olympics?
Megan’s training could be restricted by an outbreak of pandemic flu at the Olympics. They resist, because they are individualists and take part in a non-violent protest march through the city centre, which wins acceptance of individualism. It is a win for their campaign of individualism, like Australian scrub turkeys who live solitary lives, over bees who live in highly socialised groups.
There is strong pressure on Megan and Chance to conform and compromise their performances but competition is everything to them. Megan has reached a record height by arduous training without social goals.
Turkeys Not Bees is available on Amazon at https://tinyurl.com/hwn74md2
Extracts and reviews are on the blog martinknox.com
DOES A NANNY STATE BRING EQUALITY?
Lower people get ‘a good dressing down’ from aristocrats and they like it. The people want delinquents to be punished by a cruel aristocracy. But the overall requirement is for the nanny to be trusted by the base who respect her.
The dynamics of the nanny role includes her control over her people who are immature. She is expected to set the rules, acting with firmness and fairness. Foucault proposed that laws sanctioned by the aristocracy are wanted by the people to preserve the social order and prevent mayhem.
People want the nanny to be fair but that is difficult because people are not equal.
In constitutions like England’s, the nanny has two parts… first, actions which excite and preserve the reverence of the population and touch other nations—the dignified parts…and next, the efficient parts—those by which it, in fact, works and rules.
Walter Bagehot 1826–77
An over-reaching nanny state, that interferes with individuals, could be judged to compare unfavourably with the imposition of protection.
‘Many of the laws have been implemented in the expectation that they will reduce violence or improve health and safety. The excessive laws were accused of restricting freedom, ruining livelihoods and small businesses, turning the nation into a nanny state,’
A nanny is expected to nurture her charges and the state can implement free public education, free opera, ballet, museums and theatre.
A nanny is like a monarch who has to be preoccupied with fair treatment of the concerns of all her subjects. Each person wants, at some time, personal acknowledgement. Their trust expects to benefit materially. Their trust expects appropriate favour. Unless their individual needs are addressed by the nanny, there will be nothing holding them to her and the nanny state will fail. Her dignity will dissipate and a realm that had once worked efficiently will stall.
When nanny control ceases, those who had criticised the overreach could be gratified. A nanny’s pampering can have a bad effect. From Derrida’s post modern view, provision of welfare benefits can make the recipient dependent, or even addicted. To avoid creating dependency, the nanny should consider doing nothing at all. Others could find the new freedom and opportunities daunting, daring, dangerous and even more profitable. By comparison, a nanny state is more comfortable.
I have written about Nanny state issues in my novel Turkeys Not Bees available on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/hwn74md2
My other writing is on my blog martinknox.com
