It looks like the current government will not take action on the urgent issues of our time. The most urgent is climate change but it's not the only one.

Any maybe no future government take action either. It's the nature of our political system that governments ignore long-term problems.

There is only one way to force the issue.

We must find a single issue with overwhelmingly popular support. Then we organise a national strike over it.

It must be a specific actionable realistic issue. For example

• A fair sales tax on all products which produce carbon dioxide or methane, in proportion to their global warming effect per kilo. This would include concrete, beef, fertilizer, fossil fuels, steel. The money shall be used to fund a cut in the general VAT rate. So these products rise in price and everything else, every less polluting product, drops in price.
• A boycott on Israel until it grants non-Jews in territories it controls equal civil rights.
• A ban on vulture funds owning housing.

First we need a public figure, or anyone influential or persuasive, to spearhead this action.

Who can do it?

So there is a name for it. This situation we are in where nearly everyone wants to improve their society and avoid climate crisis etc, but there is no change an individual can make to improve the situation. So everyone keeps doing the same thing, helplessly knowing their strategy contributes to everything being terrible.

Are the ministers completely ignorant of economics, or are they running a racket to transfer money from people to developers?

Also this https://research.uh.edu/the-big-idea/what-went-wrong/behind-closed-drawers-the-file-drawer-effect/

I find most news sources and people think of all wars the same way. But that means they only understand the wars superficially. The two recent talked about ones, Palestine and Ukraine, are good examples.

Russia and Ukraine are very poor countries, with memory of extreme poverty and famine. They are obsessed with food security. The recent changes in Ukraine, the coup d'état, the broken peace treaty, etc, don't directly harm Russia, but they are perceived as worsening Russians' food security. This is a the thing that most frightens Russians. They must do everything they can to protect themselves against risk of famine. That is why there is a war.

When Russians say things like "we are acting against an aggression against us. This invasion is purely self-defense."

If you want to stop the war, you must address those concerns.

Israelis are obsessed with the old testament. It says that they are exceptional. Jews are God's one true people. They are precious and other people are disposable. It defines a chunk of the middle east that belongs to the Jews, and says it is their destiny to recapture it and expel or kill its inhabitants. It gives examples where a small crime can justify going to war. It justifies genocide by Jews against other tribes.

That is why there is continuous expansion of Israel into Muslin lands, including massacres and expulsions of Muslims by Israel. But any similar crime against an Israeli is leads to disproportionate and collective punishment against his whole people. That's why Israelis don't have a problem with this activity.

When Israeli statesmen say things like "they are just animals" or "what do you mean innocent Palestinian" this is what they mean.

If you want to stop the war in Palestine, you have to address that underlying rationale.

Why can't employers find enough people to do the work of society? There aren't enough people available to work as teachers, vets, bus drivers, etc. All these common, essential jobs are going unfilled in large numbers, leading to problems in the functioning of society as a whole.

And this despite rising poverty levels forcing ever more women into the workforce, and high immigration rates increasing the relative number of people of working age.

So what are the adults of Ireland all doing, that they're not available to do these jobs?

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-lfs/labourforcesurveyquarter22021/employment/

Well for a start, 15% are working in "motor vehicles". This sounds too high. I'm sure this industry does not need so many people. It's the same number as work in "human health".

How can this number be reduced, to allow more people to work in more valuable jobs?

1. Extra tax on high earning jobs like "motor vehicle" tradesmen? This could be used to fund higher salaries for jobs like driving buses. If the market is thus manipulated so essential jobs pay better, people will switch jobs and the problem is solved.

2. Promote cars which are more durable and require less frequent maintenance. Punish the sale of new cars and especially cars which cannot easily be maintained by the owner, or whose parts cannot easily and cheaply be acquired by normal people.

Encouraging electric bikes and electric cars will not help. I mean it won't help in general, but it especially won't help with this problem. Electric bikes and electric cars require more frequent maintenance and replacement than conventional cars. It is possible to design electric vehicles which are far more durable that petrol ones, because of technology advantages. But that will not happen until it is promoted through taxation, as above.

3. The need for vehicles in general is proportional to how badly towns are planned. Housing, jobs, and amenities and leisure need to be placed near each other. The placement should be enforced by planning law. This reduces commuting distances and increases usage of "mobilités douces".

So only #3 is the real solution. Through a happy coincidence, this is also the solution to most of society's other problems, like the housing crisis, drug use and bad behaviour and petty crime, global warming, etc.

Although #3 is simple and obvious, it requires critical thinking which the current government is not capable of. So it is worth remembering for after the next election.

with artistic training or brain stimulation we could look beneath the intrinsic nature of qualia to see the raw associations that make them up, just as a musician hears the individual components in what, to most fans, is a wall of sound. “It should be possible to experience parts of those underlying structures directly, just as we can learn to experience the individual overtones of a sound,”

The proposition, then, is that redness, pain, and the other qualities of experience are a blurred view of a dense thicket of relations. Red is red not because it just is, but because of a vast number of associations that we have learned or been born with.