The Half-As-Lucky Country

I’ve no idea how to start this. I started by listening to a newscast about a(nother, *sigh*) airline starting up to compete with the QANTAS and Virgin stranglehold on domestic air travel. Welcome to Koala Airways, latest in a long line of collapsing airlines.

There has been a long line of airlines set up to compete that have collapsed – McRobertson Miller Airlines (MMA) and Ansett Airways spring to mind along with a bunch of newer ones, Rex being the most recent. (I think – it’s hard to keep up with them.)

QanGin, I realised, is just another duopoly screwing Australians. Along with ColesWorth and the LabEral government, OptTelus, and a whole load more. Most of the energy companies we deal with are resellers of just a very few producers.

Australia was once The Lucky CounTry because we had competition and choices but we’re now The Unlucky Counts because we stopped Trying…

Two’s No Choice

When you have free-market capitalism and sixteen companies all start out selling the same thing, it will inevitably end in just two or three corporations. And once the market gets so small that the CEOs all go to the same Carols By Candlelight and the same dinner parties, the formation of cartels is inevitable.

Three Is Dubious

Three’s a bit harder to manage because any two corners can “gang up” on the sole corner, but it’s definitely still not going to end in the customers’ favour.

Globalisation = Bigger Cartels

That’s when I remembered those huge charts of companies showing the smaller “companies” we know connecting up the line to just a handful of corporations – and it’s pretty much everything, from dish detergent to dog collars.

Go on – remember when the search engine market had a dozen and more companies operating in it? Social media and messaging? Operating systems? Who uses Windows, who uses a version of Linux? Go on – comment below.

Welcome To Enslavement

It’s a human thing.

If you need proof that we’re probably living in a simulation, look no further than ourselves. We think in twos. Black – or white. Good – evil. Moral – bad. It’s because we’re simulated creatures who, to limit the complexities of our lives, have to come to a + or – decision on each thing in life.

Do I eat my neighbour when the shit hits the fan and the zombies take over? Is there any way I can put this on a sliding scale? “It’ll be okay if I only eat their liver. With a nice Chianti and some fava beans” We just CANNOT think in analog. And that will always lead to duopolies, it’s a built-in limit to our very selves.

Like you can’t pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time, our brains have these limits. Where we could affect the exploitative nature of duopolies is by building sliding scales into corporate law. Or at least a decision tree based on binary choices all the way.

But unless we get our shit together we won’t need to worry about it because we’ll be squabbling over who gets the best sticks and stones.


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