Most Jocks and Brits have spent the last 10-12 years devouring American content on the interwebs, mainly through the now censorious Youtube. A consequence of this is that we have been exposed to such radical ideas as Libertarianism, that have long since been banished from our terrifying government school curriculums.
The problem with much of the rhetoric there is that words mean different things in the USA, versus the UK. This is similar to when I started dating my lovely American wife, and she asked me to fetch her pants from the dryer. I came back with a selection of underwear for her.
‘Pants are not pants. They’re pants! ‘
The same problem applies to political and economic language. I would argue that terms such as ‘left’ and ‘right’, ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ often mean the opposite thing across the pond. Not only that, they are terms that have no practical use any more. They are certainly not part of our actual day to day culture.
And the dirtiest word of all, ‘libertarian’, is now shrouded in accusations of ‘Alt-Cuck-Trumpian-Neo-Nazi-Anarcho-Communism’, and endless pejorative chaff and camouflage. This is a particular shame because us Jocks have a long and foundational role in Libertarian thought, and libertarian to my mind should be defined simply as the opposite of authoritarianism. It is a useful term, that nobody can use any more due to semantic overload.
I’m going to ask the question, ‘what does the world actually show us to be real’?
I have trained as a sea captain in the Merchant Navy. After the intoxication of a university education, I sobered up and went to vocational college to get a real job. A thrilling, dangerous and difficult job. It changed my life.
The reason I loved my career at sea was that it was entirely devoid of opinion. Those who make a living out there on the ocean can give no quarter to false interpretations of reality. There is only one way to interpret a 30 m tall wave that is crashing down over you. Empirical reality is not a theory, but a dominatrix who must be obeyed.
However, in order to engage with reality successfully, we must learn to perceive reality correctly. We must do this despite our humanity, our blindness, our imperfection, fatigue, hunger, anger and our contempt.
People may think that it’s the thinking part of themselves that is in charge. It is not. The Limbic system of our brains over-rides the cortex. The main job of the cortex is to keep the limbic system happy.
What does this mean for us?
It means for seafarers like myself that we have to learn that emotion is the primary operating system for our ships.
I’ll say that again for my engineering friends:
Emotions are the operating system for ships.
Why is this important? If emotions are actually what operates heavily computerised machinery, and stops an ultra-large containership from driving up the beach every other day, or bursting a VLCC in half, then perhaps there is something we can learn from that? Hopefully something we can apply to our culture and our world view.
As I write today, the world is in the midst of the COVID-19 restrictions on the global economy. The supply-chain heroes that keep us alive and stocked with food, fuel, heating and the ability to cook, are suffering badly now. Politics are not helping these people, upon whom we all depend. This is deeply upsetting and has actually kept me awake at night with fear of what might come from this.
There are 1.6 million professional seafarers in the world, capable and licensed to operate internationally trading ships. I am one of them, although I have worked ashore for many years now. Since February 2020, the world has been in lockdown. For seafarers in Scotland and the USA this was a pain, but it wasn’t a death sentence. Europeans and Americans sailing in home waters, on reputably flagged vessels, were mostly asked to do a ‘double-header’, extending their trips by 4 to 6 weeks. A real sacrifice, but not usually devastating.
The deep sea fleet however is in a far more perilous situation. With 250,000 seafarers now stuck offshore, suicide and depression on the rise, and extreme fatigue setting in. Most of these guys have been at sea for months past the end of their contract, with over 25,000 now having been at sea for more than 1 year (unlawful, until several ‘exemptions’ were granted by the anointed ones on-high’.
Of those that are earning double-pay, or are close to retirement, or who have suffered family problems due to these extensions, how many will return to working at sea after they do get off?
Of their 250,000 counterparts ashore that have been without work since February, how many of them will have found alternative employment before they are asked to join a ship?
Shipping regulators and managers spend days on end pontificating about the ‘human element’ in shipping. ‘Safety culture’ used to be the first topic of discussion for any shipping company desperately trying to make things better, in corporate environments where no ‘culture’ actually exists.
Our regulators are not dealing with this. They are mostly still intent on reaching currently impossible targets like ’emission free shipping by 2050′.
How about we get some poeple home to their families before we spend all of our money panicking about problems that we can’t solve? Read Bjorn Lomborg and you’ll realise we have better things to spend our time on.
As an international sector, the global shipping industry faces the same problems that we all face:
- The tyranny of the government/the tyranny of the mob
- the lack of a common language
- moral panic, witch-hunts and the ‘green’ religion
- Covidiocy causing more damage than good
- the incredible-inflating-currency
- Taxes and death
In this blog, I hope to explore whether the liberty that still exists in the world is what is keeping our ‘collective’ ship afloat and whether we can expand what works? I hope to work with definitions, translate them from Yankee to plain English, and claim maritime salvage rights on some of the good ideas before they are forgotten in the name of ‘progress’.
Hopefully, the global supply chain doesn’t collapse before I can do some more writing.