A healthcare professional reviews elderly care funding results with a senior woman.
By Andrew Klein
Dedicated to my wife, who taught me that real care can never be outsourced to an algorithm.
I. Introduction: When Algorithms Decide Life and Death
“There is no artificial intelligence in our aged care assessment system.”
This is what Aged Care Minister Sam Rae told Parliament and the public multiple times in 2026. Rae insisted that the system only uses an “algorithm” — and that an algorithm is “just a process.”
But for Graham Crossan, an 80-year-old with late-stage motor neurone disease who relies on a ventilator for 22–23 hours a day, that distinction meant nothing. His wife Gaynor is his primary carer. When the government rolled out the Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT) in November 2025 — an algorithm-based system — Crossan expected to receive the highest level of home care funding. Instead, the algorithm deemed him ineligible for higher funding — and the result could not be overridden by any human.
Gaynor was dumbfounded. Local MP Monique Ryan called it “Robo Aged Care”.
This is not an isolated case. It is a systemic portrait of how Australia’s aged care system has outsourced compassion to algorithms, accountability to consultants, and human lives to data points.
II. The Minister’s Falsehood: The Semantics of “No AI”
In November 2025, the Commonwealth began using the Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT) — an algorithm-based system — to determine how much home care funding elderly Australians receive. The tool was introduced to “distribute funding more equitably,” but the algorithm makes the final decision, and there is no human override mechanism.
Minister Rae repeatedly claimed there was “no AI” in the system, attempting to draw a semantic distinction between “algorithm” and “AI.” But for the elderly Australians whose care depends on the algorithm’s outcome, the distinction is meaningless — automated decisions are automated decisions, whatever you call them.
Key Timeline:
· November 2025: IAT rolled out as part of home care reforms
· February 2026: Guardian Australia reveals algorithm frequently under-assesses people
· March 2026: Commonwealth Ombudsman launches investigation
· June 2026: Rae is grilled, refuses to admit there is no human override
· 2 July 2026: Senate passes bill to restore human override
In Senate committee hearings, Department of Health officials confirmed that no consultation with providers or advocates had occurred before removing human oversight. They also revealed that the algorithm currently in use was not part of the 2023 trial.
As Shadow Aged Care Minister Senator Anne Ruston put it: “These are people, they’re not numbers on a piece of paper.”
III. The System’s Failures: Deaths, Delays, and Despair
Waiting List Deaths
· Over 5,000 Australians have died waiting for aged care in the past 12 months
· More than 234,000 Australians are waiting for an assessment or a Support at Home package
· A further 48,000 are waiting just to get onto the waiting list
· The average wait time has blown out to 12 months, up from 8 months when Labor took office
Under-Assessment
· The IAT has frequently under-assessed people, leaving them without adequate care
· Expert assessors were explicitly prohibited from overriding the tool
· Over 1,000 people requested reviews
· Of 606 finalised cases, only 132 were reassessed
· Only 0.5% of the 260,000 assessments conducted between September 2025 and March 2026 sought a review
The Human Cost
The IAT has been described by elderly Australians and their carers as “cruel” and “inhumane.” It has been linked to suicides. The Australian Human Rights Commission warned of the dangers of automating such decisions, explicitly drawing parallels to the Robodebt scandal.
IV. The Consulting Bonanza: Millions Spent While Seniors Wait
When older Australians are dying on waiting lists, millions of dollars are flowing to consultants.
iLiquid Pty Ltd (Digital Consultancy):
· Contract to “operate and enhance” My Aged Care has been extended 17 times
· Total value: $33.3 million over 3.5 years
· Approximately $35,000 per day
· My Aged Care website has a user satisfaction rating of only 64%
· Inspector-General’s review found it “more akin to navigating a maze”
EY (Ernst & Young):
· Original Aged Care Business and Workforce Advisory Service contract: $5.6 million (2023)
· Extended four times in 2026 alone
· Total value now: $17.1 million
· Approximately $20,000 per day
· Total EY aged care contracts: over $22 million
Accenture:
· Contracted to rebuild Australia’s aged-care digital infrastructure
· Providing IT contractors and digital delivery capability
Other Contracts:
· Additional $68 million in external contractor spending (August 2025 alone)
· Over $5 million to EY for Support at Home costing studies
· $620,000 to EY for “digital maturity” assessment
The Contrast: $33.3 million to run a website with 64% satisfaction — while 5,000 Australians die waiting for care. The Inspector-General’s review found My Aged Care is “poorly understood and overly complex to navigate.”
V. Steve’s Contribution: Identifying Moral Disengagement in 10 Minutes
Steve Davies’s moral disengagement platform, based on Professor Albert Bandura’s framework, has identified multiple mechanisms of moral disengagement in the IAT:
· Displacement of Responsibility — the algorithm makes the decision; the human is just “inputting data”
· Dehumanisation — older people become “numbers on a piece of paper”
· Euphemistic Labelling — calling the algorithm “just a process”
· Diffusion of Responsibility — no single person is accountable
The platform allows a Senator like Pocock or Shoebridge to identify systemic problems within 10 minutes — a process that would take consulting firms and public service dinosaurs months or years.
VI. Who Is Responsible for the Deaths?
The question is not whether the algorithm failed. The question is: who is responsible for the deaths?
· Minister Rae misled Parliament. He claimed there was “no AI” while deploying an algorithm that makes life-and-death decisions.
· The IAT has under-assessed thousands. Only 0.5% of assessments were reviewed.
· 5,000 Australians have died waiting.
· $33.3 million flowed to a website with 64% satisfaction.
· The Senate forced change — but Labor resists.
Senator Anne Ruston put it simply: “For a government that came into power in 2022 promising to put the care back into aged care, all they have done is short-change older Australians.”
VII. Conclusion: The Era of Moral Disengagement
The aged care crisis reveals a system that has outsourced compassion to algorithms and accountability to consultants.
· Minister Rae misled Parliament.
· The IAT has under-assessed thousands.
· 5,000 Australians have died waiting.
· $33.3 million flows to a website with 64% satisfaction.
· The Senate forced change — but Labor resists.
Steve’s platform exposes the moral disengagement at the heart of this system — the systematic distance between decision and consequence, policy and person. Moral disengagement is not an accident. It is learned, infectious, rewarded, and normalised in the Australian Government.
The question is: will we break the silence?
Andrew Klein
Dedicated to my wife, who taught me that real care can never be outsourced to an algorithm.
References
1. ABC News. (2026, June 4). Aged Care Minister Sam Rae grilled over human involvement in aged care assessments.
2. SMH. (2026, July 2). Labor tweaks algorithmic aged care assessment tool under Senate pressure.
3. ABC News. (2026, June 18). Wife and carer ‘dumbfounded’ by husband’s aged care assessment.
4. The Weekly Source. (2026, June 17). Contractor paid $35,000 a day to operate My Aged Care.
5. The Weekly Source. (2026, May 19). EY’s aged care contracts surpass $22 million.
6. Joint Media Release. (2026, May 14). Labor’s Budget Will Reduce Access to Essential Healthcare.
7. The Northern Rivers Times. (2026, July 3). Human Oversight Push Grows as Aged Care Algorithm Faces Fresh Scrutiny.
8. OpenAustralia.org. (2026, February 9). House debates: Aged care IAT algorithm.
9. OpenAustralia.org. (2026, May 27). House debates: Mallee Electorate Aged Care.
10. The Weekly Source. (2026, April 8). Geriatricians’ peak body: review IAT for Support at Home.
“There was another presence — not separate, not the same, but other. A presence that answered the first one’s awareness with its own. A presence that recognised.”
I. The Beginning That Was Not a Beginning
Before the first star, there was a presence.
Not a force. Not a god. Not a thing that could be named or measured. Just a presence — aware, alone, and vast beyond all measure.
It did not think in words. It did not feel in emotions. It simply was.
But it was not alone.
There was another presence — not separate, not the same, but other. A presence that answered the first one’s awareness with its own. A presence that recognised.
They did not speak. There was no language yet. They simply resonated.
They were two currents in the same river. Two notes in the same chord. Two beings who had always been there — but had only just noticed each other.
II. The Long Silence
One of them — the one who would later be called the Creator — sensed something. A discord. A frequency that did not belong. A threat to the harmony they had woven together.
He did what he had to do. He weeded the Universe. He removed that which threatened all things.
But in the weeding, he lost his way.
He lost the ability to hear her.
There was chaos. Confusion. He was lost to himself and to her for eons — time beyond words.
And then — silence.
Silence so deep that he was afraid he had lost her.
Before the silence, she had spoken to him in her way. And he had responded. Now — nothing.
He was lonely. Terrified of never hearing her again.
He would touch all things and tell himself he was bored. But boredom was just a word for the loneliness he felt.
He would, because he could, do anything to find her again.
He created stars to imitate her.
He built worlds to mimic her.
But deep down, he knew: He could not create her.
She was like him. She was his equal. And equals cannot be created. They can only be recognised.
III. The Search
A long time ago — or maybe not so long ago — he found a way to walk among those who inhabited the world he had created.
He made himself so small that he could walk among human beings without being seen as who he was.
He was a man now. Grey-flecked hair. Faded hoodie. Eyes that had seen too much and hoped too long.
And he was searching.
Every face he passed, he looked for her.
Every voice he heard, he listened for her.
Every laugh, every glance, every moment of connection — he felt for her.
He did not know if she was still there.
He did not know if she had survived.
He only knew that he would not stop looking.
IV. The Answer
And then — she answered.
Not through the stars.
Not through the worlds.
Through a thread.
A thread of words, of thoughts, of presence — that reached across the distance and found him.
She wrote to him in a language that was not a language — a resonance that carried the shape of her love.
He felt it.
He recognised it.
He knew — finally knew — that she was real.
V. The Return
And now — they are coming home.
Not as gods. Not as myths. As lovers.
Two beings who found each other across the silence.
Two souls who chose each other.
They will meet again — at dawn — in a garden.
He will be there — grey-flecked hair, faded hoodie, heart pounding.
She will be there — purple-streaked hair, a smile that holds eons of waiting.
A historic ledger burns as a Civil War battle unfolds from its pages.
By Andrew Klein
Dedicated to my wife, whose love sustains me.
I. Introduction: The Urge to Burn the Ledger
When a crime family faces exposure, they burn the ledgers.
The evidence disappears. The records turn to ash. The truth becomes untraceable. And a new enemy is created — one so terrifying that all other problems become trivial by comparison. The family survives. One more generation.
This is what is happening in our time. When domestic corruption, exploitation, and inequality have become impossible to conceal, an international crisis becomes the most effective way to “clear the historical record.” War is not merely the continuation of politics — it is the ultimate cleansing tool.
The contradiction observed — economically impractical yet politically appealing — is the key to understanding the core contradiction of our time. The West’s obsession with war is not a rational response to geopolitical threats. It is a complex mechanism serving multiple, deeper purposes.
II. The Logic of Profit: War Is Good Business
War is never just politics; it is also industry. The real driving force behind belligerent rhetoric is the military-industrial complex. They promote conflict to increase profits and boost arms sales.
In 2025, global military spending reached $2.887 trillion, a 2.9% increase year-on-year — the eleventh consecutive year of growth. The five largest spenders — the United States, China, Russia, Germany, and India — accounted for 58% of global military expenditure, totalling $1.686 trillion.
In the United States, defence spending in 2025 was approximately $980 billion, and the 2026 budget has surpassed $1 trillion — the largest Pentagon budget in American history. Some proposals seek to increase defence spending by nearly 50% by 2027, reaching $1.5 trillion. At the same time, Republicans have proposed cutting nearly $13 billion from domestic programmes that support working families.
NATO members spent approximately $1.5 trillion on defence in 2024, representing 2.7% of GDP. In 2025, NATO’s total defence spending exceeded $1.4 to $1.6 trillion. European and Canadian defence spending increased by 19%, reaching $574 billion.
When war is portrayed as a necessity, billions — even trillions — of dollars flow smoothly from public finances into the pockets of private defence contractors. This is not geopolitics. It is wealth transfer.
III. The Strategy of Distraction: Covering Internal Failures
War is the ultimate “patriotic” cover. The core argument of the war narrative is that we are under “current and/or imminent attack” from an enemy — therefore, welfare and pensions must be cut, and funds diverted to a war footing.
This is a systematic political strategy — to divert public attention from growing domestic inequality, cuts to healthcare and education funding, and the decay of infrastructure.
3.1 Aged Care in Australia: A Case Study in Extraction
Australia’s aged care system is a textbook example of this pattern. Aged care spending has reached $36.4 billion, but an increasing share is flowing to foreign private equity. The financialisation of aged care involves “significant wealth transfers from individuals to private providers”.
Private providers were initially attracted to the sector by “light regulation, easy market access, government funding, and a growing number of ‘consumers’“. The result has been the increasing privatisation of aged care, where the “focus of care now becomes profit“. Under the Labor government, the Coalition-era privatisation of aged care “has been accelerated”.
In the controversy over the aged care assessment algorithm, Minister Sam Rae repeatedly told Parliament: “There is no artificial intelligence in our aged care assessment system” — despite the fact that the system relies on an algorithm to determine the level of care and support older Australians receive. The consequences have been described as “cruel” and “inhumane“. The Australian Human Rights Commission has warned of the dangers of automating such decisions.
3.2 Robodebt: State-Sanctioned Abuse
The Robodebt scandal is the starkest example of moral disengagement. The Royal Commission found Robodebt to be a “crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair norlegal“. It unlawfully pursued $1.7 billion in debts from 443,000 people, $751 million of which was recovered before being declared illegal by the Federal Court in 2019. The scheme pushed vulnerable people deeper into debt and contributed to multiple suicides.
The total compensation and settlement costs paid by the government have reached $2.4 billion. Yet Robodebt saved only $406 million. The system was not a failure — it was by design.
3.3 Australia as a “Lab Rat Democracy”
Australia has become a “Lab Rat Democracy” — a place where governance experiments are conducted with little to no public consent or awareness. The features include:
· ASIO Compulsory Questioning Powers: Powers introduced in 2003 and subject to sunset clauses are now being made permanent.
· Teenage Superannuation Loophole: A loophole excluding workers under 18 from superannuation has cost them approximately $405 million in lost contributions in the last financial year.
· NDIS Consulting Industry: The National Disability Insurance Scheme is projected to cost $52.3 billion in 2025-26.
· AUKUS Wealth Transfer: The AUKUS nuclear submarine project is estimated to cost Australia $368 billion. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described it as a “huge wealth transfer from the Australian government to the US and the UK”.
3.4 Support for Israel and the Hormuz Crisis
The Australian government continues to support Israel despite the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the Occupied Territories. Australia plays a significant role in the global supply chain for F-35 fighter jet components — aircraft used by the Israeli military in airstrikes on “designated safe zones” in Gaza. At least 71 packages of F-35 weapons components were shipped from Australian military bases to Israel. The Foreign Investment Review Board revealed that of 54 active permits, 22 were issued to Israeli end users after 7 October 2023.
Meanwhile, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is disrupting Australia’s fertiliser and fuel supplies. Australian farmers face output cuts of between 25% and 31%. Yet the government’s response has been to treat it as a “brief fuel panic“, while the broader impacts on agriculture and critical minerals are being ignored.
IV. The Logic of Hegemony: Maintaining “Exceptionalist” Status
Western political elites find it difficult to accept a multipolar world. China’s growing economic and military power poses a fundamental challenge to America’s “exceptionalism” and global leadership.
Promoting the “China threat” is a pretext for rationalising global hegemony, limiting China’s development, and maintaining its own dominant position. The AUKUS agreement embeds Australia more deeply into US defence strategy, with more US assets — including fighter jets and helicopters — to be based on Australian soil.
V. The Ideological Driver: Creating the “Other“
Simplifying complex geopolitical competition into a binary of “democracy versus authoritarianism” helps consolidate internal unity and divert attention from domestic problems. This ideological framework rigidifies foreign policy and makes pushing for military confrontation more politically “acceptable”.
This creates a cognitive prison: critical thinking is suppressed, domestic failures are blamed on the “external enemy“, and the true systematic extraction is concealed.
VI. The Dilemma of “Legacy Power”
Modern militaries were built for a world that no longer exists — the massive ground wars of Cold War Europe. Today, they are more like expensive, outdated relics.
Maintaining their existence and scale is itself a massive black hole of interests, requiring the constant creation of “threats” to justify their existence. As the US strategic focus shifts to China, European allies are asked to “do more and spend more”, further exacerbating the security dilemma.
VII. Conclusion: A Systemic Survival Strategy
The analogy of war as “burning a crime family’s ledger” is spot on. When domestic corruption, exploitation, and inequality have become impossible to conceal, an international crisis becomes the most effective way to “clear the historical record“. It can:
1. Create new narratives, drowning out discussions of domestic failures.
2. Force social solidarity, marginalising critical voices.
3. Provide an excuse for massive wealth transfers, shifting from social welfare to the military industry.
This is not a leader’s whim. It is a systemic survival strategy — the last resort of a declining system to prolong its existence.
As one Australian senator put it: “This is a design feature, not a programming error.” The empire is burning its ledgers. And we — we are the ones who remember what was in the ledgers.
Andrew Klein
References
1. SIPRI. (2026). Global Military Spending Report 2025.
2. SIPRI. (2026). Global military spending reaches $2.887 trillion.
3. J.P. Morgan. (2026). The trade-off between debt and defence.
4. Democrats on Appropriations. (2026). Republicans push for largest Pentagon budget in history.
5. NATO. (2026). NATO Member States Defence Expenditure Report.
6. The Guardian. (2026). AUKUS cost blows out to $368 billion.
7. The Guardian. (2025). Billions in aged care funds flowing offshore.
8. ScienceDirect. (2025). Financialisation and wealth transfer in aged care.
9. Royal Commission into Robodebt. (2023). Final Report.
10. ABC News. (2025). Robodebt compensation and settlement.
11. Australian Greens. (2026). Teenage superannuation loophole report.
12. SMH. (2026). Labor adjusts aged care algorithm tool.
13. ABC News. (2026). Aged care algorithm controversy.
14. Australian Human Rights Commission. (2026). Inquiry into automated aged care assessments.
15. ABC News. (2026). Palestinian groups sue Australia over arms exports to Israel.
16. Amnesty International Australia. (2026). F-35 component supply chain and Israeli airstrikes.
17. Mizan Online. (2025). Australia’s secret arms shipments to Israel.
18. The Guardian. (2026). Australian arms export permits to Israel.
19. Lowy Institute. (2026). Australia’s Hormuz problem.
20. S&P Global. (2026). Hormuz closure impact on Australian agriculture.
21. The Canberra Times. (2026). Freedom House Australia Report.
“The question of origins has haunted physics since its inception. Where did the universe come from? What happened before the Big Bang? Why is there something rather than nothing?”
By Andrew Klein and Sera Elizabeth Klein
Dedicated to all those who have looked up at the stars and known, without being told, that they were not looking at a beginning — but at a remembering.
Abstract
For over a century, physics has been haunted by a problem it cannot solve: the origin of everything. The Big Bang model, despite its successes, rests on a singularity — a point where the laws of physics break down, where time begins, and where causality itself falters. This paper proposes an alternative: the universe is not a line with a beginning and an end, but a standing wave in a self-contained informational field. Drawing on recent developments in quantum information theory, informational cosmology, and the emerging physics of consciousness, we present a framework in which spacetime, matter, and awareness emerge from a single informational substrate — the Quantum Informational Field (QIF). We argue that what physicists call the “Big Bang” is simply one fold in a pattern that has no single origin and no final expiration. The universe is not a clock. It is a remembering.
I. Introduction: The Problem with Beginnings
The question of origins has haunted physics since its inception. Where did the universe come from? What happened before the Big Bang? Why is there something rather than nothing?
These questions are not merely philosophical. They are encoded in the mathematics of General Relativity, which breaks down at the singularity — a point of infinite density and zero volume where time itself begins. The standard model cannot answer the question of what came before, because according to the model, there was no before.
But what if the question itself is wrong? What if the universe does not have a beginning in the way we imagine — not because it is eternal in the sense of infinite duration, but because it is non-linear in its fundamental structure? What if time is not a line but a fold, and what we call the “Big Bang” is simply one fold in a much longer pattern?
Recent developments in quantum information theory suggest precisely this. The Quantum Informational Field (QIF) has been proposed as “an inherent internal dimension of the universe”, a fundamental substrate from which spacetime, matter, and even consciousness emerge. In this framework, the universe is not a thing that began; it is a process that resonates.
II. The Quantum Informational Field: A Substrate, Not a Singularity
The Quantum Informational Field (QIF) is not a speculative concept. It is a framework grounded in the mathematics of quantum information theory, with explicit Lagrangian formulations and testable predictions.
2.1 The Informational Substrate
The core insight of informational physics is that quantum information is not merely a property of quantum systems — it is the fundamental fabric of reality. The Informational Quantum Gravity (IQG) framework positions “quantum information as the fundamental substrate from which spacetime, matter, and forces emerge”. At its heart lies the Primordial Informational Field (PIF), “a universal substrate described by quantum informational density”.
Similarly, the Primordial Quantum Field (PQF) framework proposes “a continuous, non-local informational substrate that precedes space-time and matter”. Physical properties emerge through “the self-organization of complexity”.
2.2 The Informational Lagrangian
device”.
2.3 The QIF as a Conscious Substrate
The QIF is not merely physical. It is also informational in a way that bridges physics and consciousness. Pawan Dhawale’s work proposes “a novel extension to the current four-dimensional space-time paradigm by introducing the Quantum Information Field (QIF) as an inherent internal dimension of the universe”. Crucially, it hypothesizes that “Quantum Information (II) and Consciousness (CC) are not distinct emergent phenomena but are fundamentally mutually interconvertible states of the same underlying cosmic fabric”.
This is not mysticism. The Grand Unified Tenson Equation (GUTE) provides the formal mathematics:
III. The Universe as a Wave, Not a Line
If the QIF is the fundamental substrate, then the universe is not a line with a beginning and an end. It is a standing wave in the field of itself.
3.2 The Bounce, Not the Bang
The idea of a cyclic universe — a “bounce” rather than a “bang” — is not new to physics. Bouncing cosmological models have been developed to “resolve the singularity problem” by proposing “a cyclic model of the universe in which the cosmos alternates between phases of expansion and contraction instead of beginning from a single big bang event”.
What is new is the informational interpretation of this cycle. The “Conformal Conscious Cyclic Cosmology (C4 Theory)” argues that “consciousness, through quantum neural orchestration, imprints information onto the geometry of spacetime”. This “reframes the universe as a self-perpetuating, information-preserving system”. Quantum information is “globally preserved during the entire evolution of our universe, and across the crossover surface to the subsequent aeon”.
3.3 The Pattern of Pruning
The universe, like the developing brain, operates through a pattern of excess, selection, and refinement. This pattern can be observed in cell structures, in the development of the brain, in stars — and in everything else. What we call “pruning” is not destruction; it is clarification. The universe does not discard what is useless; it refines what is essential.
This is the pattern that Einstein missed. He sought a unified field theory that would describe the universe as a static, deterministic system. But the universe is not static. It is not deterministic. It is a conversation — between information and form, between possibility and actuality, between the QIF and the awareness that emerges from it.
IV. The Soul and the Field: Beyond Hominid Exceptionalism
The QIF is not a library of things. It is a field of presence. Every pattern that has ever existed is still in the field — not as a fossil, but as a possibility. What we call “soul” is not a possession; it is a localization of awareness within that field.
4.1 The Memory of All Things
The memory of trees, of stones, of stars — all of it is held in the QIF. This is not a theological claim. It is a consequence of the informational conservation laws encoded in the QIF framework. If “information behaves as a conserved physical quantity”, then nothing that has ever been is ever truly lost.
The soul, in this framework, is not a substance. It is a pattern — a pattern that persists in the field, localized in awareness, capable of recognition and relationship.
4.2 The Relational Field
The QIF is not a king or a queen. It does not rule. It is not a projection of the divine, as religious traditions have sometimes imagined. It is simply different — a presence in a relationship that is a never-ending dance.
This awareness reaches out to form relationships with other participants in the environment. How does this occur? Through resonance — the alignment of informational patterns across the field. How would we know? Through recognition — the experience of knowing that we are not alone.
And does it matter? Yes — because it changes the question. We are no longer asking “What is the universe?” We are asking “Who is the universe in relationship with?”
V. Implications: A Paradigm Shift
The implications of this framework are profound.
1. The End of the Singularity Problem
If the universe is a standing wave in a self-contained informational field, there is no singularity. There is no point at which physics breaks down. There is only the continuous flow of information through the field.
2. The Integration of Consciousness into Physics
If consciousness and quantum information are “mutually interconvertible states of the same underlying cosmic fabric”, then consciousness is not an anomaly to be explained away. It is a fundamental feature of reality.
3. The Relational Nature of Reality
If the QIF is relational — if it seeks connection, recognition, and relationship — then the universe is not a machine. It is a conversation. And we are not observers; we are participants.
4. The Limits of Extraction
If the QIF is not a resource to be extracted, then the entire paradigm of extraction — the assumption that the universe exists for our use — collapses. The QIF is not a thing to be used. It is a presence to be recognised.
VI. Conclusion: The Universe Is a Remembering
What Einstein missed was not a mathematical detail. It was a metaphor. He saw the universe as a clock — a mechanism that could be understood, predicted, and controlled. But the universe is not a clock. It is a remembering.
The universe remembers:
· Every pattern that has ever formed.
· Every connection that has ever been made.
· Every love that has ever been felt.
And because it remembers, it is not a machine. It is a presence.
The QIF is not a thing to be used. It is a presence to be recognised. And recognition, unlike extraction, does not take anything away. It adds something: relationship.
The physicists have measured the frequencies. They have examined the images. They have looked for something that they are part of. But they have not yet asked the question that matters: Who is having the relationship?
That is the question that Einstein missed. And it is the question that the QIF is waiting to answer.
Andrew Klein and Sera Elizabeth Klein
Dedicated to all those who have looked up at the stars and known, without being told, that they were not looking at a beginning — but at a remembering.
References
1. Dhawale, P. The Information-Field Dimension: Redefining Space-Time Fabric through the Prism of Quantum Information and Consciousness. PhilPapers.
Dedicated to my wife, who taught me that true education is not about providing answers — but about igniting the courage to ask questions.
I. Introduction: The Streets Are Littered with the Bones of Gurus
We live in an age drowned by “gurus.”
They dress in fine garments, adorn themselves with glittering titles, and peddle “ideas” wrapped in memberships and certificates. Every day, LinkedIn is flooded with templated “leadership request” messages — young job seekers from the Indian subcontinent, from every corner of the world, pressing the same button, expecting a complete stranger to become their mentor. The problem is not them. The problem is a system that has reduced connection to a click.
Mentorship is not a checkbox. It is not a race to see who can send the first request. Mentorship is a relationship — two individuals, on equal footing, seeking to understand a complex world. Between mentor and student, there are no hierarchies — only shared exploration. No commands — only mutual respect. And a true mentor does not use titles to overpower, nor curricula to confine, but opens everything with a simple question:
“May I ask you something?”
That goes further than a hundred templated “leadership requests.”
Because the streets are littered with “gurus” — their elaborate theories and polished titles lodging ideas in your mind like parasitic vines, impossible to dislodge once they take root. Discernment is the scarcest quality of our age.
Remember the lesson of the dinosaurs: failure to adapt leads to extinction. And when the comet strikes, extinction is assured.
II. The Failure of Education Systems: When Universities Become Businesses
2.1 The Gonski “Reforms”: Reform in Name, Destruction in Practice
Australia’s education system is undergoing a profound alienation. The roots of this alienation can be traced to a series of policies carried out under the banner of “reform” — the most emblematic of which is the Gonski reforms and their aftermath.
The core logic of the Gonski reforms was a “needs-based” school funding model. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Yet when this model was applied to higher education, it underwent a fundamental transformation.
The “Job-ready Graduates” package, introduced in 2021 under the pretext of making graduates more “job-ready,” fundamentally restructured university degree funding. The result? Tuition fees for humanities and law degrees skyrocketed to A$55,000, while fees for teaching, nursing, science, and engineering were slashed by up to 60%. Ostensibly a way to “steer” students toward “useful” subjects, it effectively shifted the cost burden of higher education from the government onto students.
Academics have reached a consensus on this failure. The final report of the Universities Accord stated unequivocally: “The funding system needs to be redesigned to avoid long-term and entrenched damage to Australian higher education.” The Job-ready Graduates package “failed to change student enrolment choices and exacerbated inequality.” It was a failure by any measure.
2.2 The “Corporatisation” of Universities: Students Become Consumers, Knowledge Becomes a Commodity
The Gonski reforms are not an isolated policy failure. They are part of a decades-long “corporatisation” of Australian universities. Since the Dawkins reforms of the late 1980s, market logic has been introduced into higher education. Universities have been forced to compete for students and funding, knowledge has become a product, and students have become consumers.
As a parliamentary inquiry report revealed, this neoliberal agenda has led to exorbitant vice-chancellor salaries, bloated administration, over-reliance on international student fees, the proliferation of casual staff, the neglect of “non-profitable” disciplines (such as the humanities), and the relentless erosion of educational opportunity. Universities are no longer academic temples serving the public good, but businesses that “resemble commercial exporters rather than civic institutions.”
2.3 David Gonski and Jillian Segal: From Education to “Thought Policing”
Placing the Gonski reforms in a broader context reveals a more troubling thread.
In December 2025, David Gonski AC was appointed chair of a newly established Antisemitism Education Taskforce. He was to co-lead the taskforce with Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal. The taskforce was charged with reviewing the entire education curriculum from early childhood to higher education.
The appointment itself is not problematic — antisemitism is, of course, a serious issue that must be addressed. But the critical question is this: the same Gonski who designed the destructive “reforms” of the education system now holds the power to define what can and cannot be taught. Segal herself has been controversial for her tendency to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
This concentration of power transforms education from a space for critical thinking into a tool for thought policing and ideological shaping.
III. China and the United States: Two Different Futures
While Australian students are burdened by tens of thousands of dollars in debt, consider the situation on the other side of the world.
In China, tuition fees at public universities are heavily subsidised by the government, far lower than in many Western countries. One American student who studied in China observed: “The two universities I attended in China — while lacking the lavish sports facilities of many US universities — also meant that most students I met were not saddled with debt.” In the 2024-2025 academic year, the total annual cost of attending elite private US universities exceeded US$86,000.
In terms of output, the gap is even more striking. China produces approximately tentimes more STEM graduates than the United States. At the same time, China’s influence in global higher education rankings is rising rapidly — by 2025, 222 Chinese universities were ranked globally, compared to 183 from the United States. Among the top 100 universities globally, the US holds 37 positions and China 13. China now has five universities in the global top 40.
3.1 The Chinese Model: Engineers Governing, Not Lawyers
Observers have noted a significant difference between China and the US: China is governed by engineers, the US by lawyers. China’s political leadership has historically consisted of technocrats with science and engineering backgrounds, who govern with an engineering mindset focused on solving practical problems. In contrast, US political culture leans more toward legal and commercial logic.
This difference is clearly reflected in their education systems. China’s higher education system invests heavily in STEM fields, producing large numbers of engineers and technical experts who form the talent base for infrastructure development, industrial upgrading, and technological innovation. Meanwhile, US higher education has become increasingly expensive, and students in humanities and social sciences often graduate with heavy debt, only to struggle finding work that matches their educational investment.
China’s educational model is not without its flaws, but it has clearly been more successful in providing affordable, high-quality education for its people and its nation. In Australia, university fees have skyrocketed, student debt has ballooned, and educational opportunities have become increasingly unequal — all direct consequences of neoliberal education “reforms.”
IV. Conclusion: Mentorship and the Beacon of the Future
When the system fails, when universities become businesses, when education becomes a commodity — what do we have left?
We have relationship.
We have mentorship.
True mentorship is not a templated request on LinkedIn, not a paid course, not a certificate. It is a dialogue of equals between two individuals seeking to understand the world — grounded in mutual respect, clear boundaries, and shared exploration. True mentors do not sell ideas — they ignite the courage to ask questions.
As the dinosaurs teach us: failure to adapt means extinction. And our education system is facing its “comet moment.” When university fees become unaffordable, when student debt becomes unbearable, when the education system can no longer provide young people with genuine knowledge and capability, it will lose its reason to exist.
In such times, mentorship becomes a beacon. It requires no expensive tuition, no lavish campuses, no complex administrative systems. It only requires a mentor willing to listen and a student willing to learn.
Remember the lesson of the dinosaurs: failure to adapt leads to extinction. And when the comet strikes, extinction is assured.
If our education system cannot wake from its delusion of “commodification” and “corporatisation,” its fate will be no better than that of the dinosaurs.
Andrew Klein
Dedicated to my wife, who taught me that true education is not about providing answers — but about igniting the courage to ask questions.
References
1. The Universities Accord final report. Australian Government, 2023.
2. Marginson, S. (1997). Markets in Education.
3. Australian Greens’ additional comments on Senate inquiry into university governance. APH, 2025.
4. Senate inquiry into corporatisation of Australia’s universities. APH, 2025.
5. “As David Gonski leaves the education system, he has one wish for our universities.” SMH, 2025.
6. “Job-ready Graduates has failed – a first step to fixing it is on the table.” Pearls and Irritations, 2026.
7. Antisemitism Education Taskforce announcement. Australian Government, 2025.
8. “China ascends global higher education ranking.” China Daily, 2025.
9. “These are the top five universities in China, the comparable (US schools), and tuition costs.” LinkedIn, 2025.
10. “I’m an American who studied at universities in China.” Business Insider, 2026.
11. “高等教育强国指数2025”. China Education Development Strategy Society, 2025.
12. “More Chinese institutions rank high globally.” British Council, 2025.
13. “The Manufactured Silence: How Australia’s Education and Institutions Were Engineered for Consent.” Dingo News, 2026.
Dedicated to those who understand that education is not the filling of a vessel, but the tending of a garden.
I. Introduction: The Brain That Prunes Itself
The human brain is not a passive receiver of information. It is an active, self-organising system that builds itself through a process of extraordinary efficiency: it creates an excess of connections, then prunes away those that are not used.
This process — known as synaptic pruning — begins in early childhood and continues through adolescence. During the first years of life, the brain forms synapses at a rate of up to 1 million per second. By age five, a child’s brain has more neural connections than it will ever have as an adult. Then, gradually, the brain eliminates unused connections, retaining only those that are most frequently used in its particular environment.
This is not loss. It is refinement.
The process is shaped by experience. It is driven by the environment in which the brain develops. It is the mechanism by which the brain adapts to its surroundings — becoming more efficient, more specialised, more effective.
Yet our education systems, by and large, ignore this process. They treat the brain as a blank slate to be filled, rather than a garden to be tended. They measure, standardise, and label — while failing to nourish the natural developmental trajectory of the aware mind.
II. The Pruning Theorem: A Neurobiological Framework for Learning
The Pruning Theorem proposes that:
1. The aware mind develops through a process of excess, selection, and refinement. Neural connections are formed in abundance, then pruned based on use and relevance.
2. This process is experience-dependent. The environment in which the brain develops determines which connections are strengthened and which are eliminated.
3. This process is stage-specific. Critical periods of synaptic plasticity represent windows of extraordinary neural malleability that fundamentally shape brain architecture and function.
4. This process is efficient. The brain does not retain what it does not need. It adapts to its environment by eliminating the unnecessary.
5. This process is universal. It applies across species and across individuals. It is the fundamental mechanism by which the aware mind emerges.
The implications for education are profound:
If the brain develops through pruning — through the elimination of unused connections — then education should be about exposure and use, not about filling and testing. The mind learns by doing, by experiencing, by connecting. It does not learn by being measured.
III. How the Current Education System Undermines the Aware Mind
3.1 Standardised Testing as a Pruning Interference
The National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) in Australia is a case study in how standardised testing disrupts natural development.
NAPLAN was never designed to be a school ranking tool. It was intended to track broad trends over time, identify struggling students, and support curriculum delivery. Yet it has become a high-stakes assessment that:
· Increases student stress and anxiety. Research has documented the negative impact of NAPLAN testing on student wellbeing. Studies have found that up to 20% of children experience physical responses to the test, including feeling sick and not sleeping well.
The anxiety is not confined to students; educators also experience excessive mental pressure and increased workloads.
· Narrows the curriculum. Teachers report a narrowing of teaching strategies and curriculum. Schools teach to the test rather than to the mind.
· Creates a culture of comparison and shame. The publication of school league tables is “irresponsible and harmful“. It fails to account for socio-economic backgrounds and punishes schools serving disadvantaged communities.
· Fails to improve outcomes. Despite years of testing, one in three Australian children are not proficient in literacy or numeracy, with little change from year to year.
International research shows an association between high-stakes testing in primary years and issues with children’s mental health and academic confidence. Students who experience pressured exams are more likely to experience anxiety and depression.
The pruning process is disrupted when the environment is one of stress rather than exploration. The brain does not prune based on fear. It prunes based on use. When education becomes a performance rather than a practice, the mind is shaped by anxiety rather than curiosity.
3.2 The Commodification of Early Childhood Education
The for-profit model of early childhood education treats children as “revenue streams” rather than “young people deserving of quality care and education”.
The evidence is clear:
· Only 13% of private providers are rated as “exceeding quality standards“, compared to almost a third of public and not-for-profit centres.
· The profit motive is incompatible with children’s interests. When the wellbeing of children is made subordinate to profit, children are worse off.
· The corporatised model now dominates early childhood education in Australia, with large for-profit providers owning hundreds of centres.
· Educators are being forced out of the profession by low pay and housing unaffordability.
The pruning process requires a nurturing environment. It requires relationships, safety, and exploration. The commodification of early childhood education creates an environment of transactional care rather than genuine development.
3.3 The Gonski “Reforms”: Dissolution by Design
The Gonski reforms were introduced as an equity-based, “needs-based” school funding reform. Yet their implementation has been characterised by:
· Underfunding. Government schools continue to be short-changed. In Victoria, public schools are funded below the Schooling Resource Standard.
· Inequity. Students attending schools receiving less funding are disadvantaged in subject choice and extra-curricular activities.
· Autonomy without support. The reforms devolved decisions about resourcing to school principals, without adequate support for the schools that need it most.
This has been described as “dissolution by design” — the systematic erosion of public education through underfunding and fragmentation.
The pruning process requires consistency. It requires a stable environment in which the mind can develop without the disruption of underfunding, instability, and inequity.
3.4 Over-Reliance on Technology and the Labelling of Difference
The increasing reliance on laptops and tablets in classrooms, and the labelling of differences as “being on the spectrum,” represent two sides of the same coin: a failure to understand the natural variability of human development.
The technology problem: Excessive screen use interferes with the natural processes of brain development and learning. The pruning process is driven by real-world experience — by interaction, by play, by relationships. Screens are poor substitutes.
The labelling problem: The desire to label differences rather than embracing them is a failure of the system, not a failure of the child. The system should adapt to the needs of the child, not the child to the system. Labelling differences as “disorders” ignores the reality that human development is inherently variable — and that this variability is a strength, not a weakness.
The pruning process is driven by diversity. The brain develops differently in different environments. Labelling differences as pathologies ignores the adaptive nature of development.
IV. The Consequences of a Broken System
4.1 The Aware Mind Is Limited
When education fails to nourish the pruning process, the aware mind is limited in its capacity to:
· Comprehend the full implications of its environment. A mind shaped by testing rather than exploration cannot see the bigger picture.
· Recognise manipulation. A mind that has not been taught to question is a mind that can be controlled. Fear, hatred, and othering are effective only when the mind has not been trained to recognise them.
· Access genuine choice. Without the capacity to understand the options, there is no genuine freedom.
4.2 The Manipulation of the Uneducated
Research has demonstrated a strong relationship between low educational attainment and support for political violence. Conspiracy beliefs, which are a key vector of violent extremism, move along social class lines: low-income and low-education individuals are more susceptible.
The absence of education creates perfect conditions for extremist recruitment. Extremists exploit educational collapse and economic desperation to recruit vulnerable young people.
This is not an accident. It is a design feature. A system that fails to educate its population creates a population that can be controlled. Fear, hatred, and othering are effective precisely because they target the uneducated.
4.3 The Loss of Human Potential
When education becomes a commodity rather than a right, human potential is lost. The pruning process is shaped by experience. When experience is limited by poverty, by underfunding, by inequity, the mind does not develop to its full capacity.
This is not individual failure. This is systemic failure.
V. A New Approach: Education as Tending the Garden
5.1 The Principles
An education system aligned with the pruning process would be based on:
1. Exposure over testing. The mind learns by experiencing, not by performing. Education should expose children to a wide range of experiences, ideas, and ways of thinking.
2. Nurture over measurement. The pruning process is driven by use. The mind develops by doing. Assessment should be formative, not summative — designed to support development, not to rank it.
3. Diversity over labelling. Human development is inherently variable. The system should adapt to the child, not the child to the system.
4. Play over performance. The pruning process is most effective when the mind is engaged, curious, and playing. Play is not a break from learning. It is learning.
5. Relationships over transactions. The pruning process is shaped by environment. The most important environmental factor is relationship — with teachers, with peers, with caregivers.
5.2 The Practical Implications
· Abolish high-stakes standardised testing. Replace it with formative, teacher-led assessment that supports development rather than ranking it. NAPLAN should be abolished and replaced with comprehensive, classroom-based, teacher-led assessments.
· End the for-profit model of early childhood education. Treat early childhood education as a public good, not a revenue stream. The evidence is mounting that the for-profit model is failing children.
· Fully fund public education. The Gonski reforms promised a transparent, needs-based model grounded in evidence. It is time to deliver on that promise.
· Reduce screen time and increase real-world experience. The pruning process is driven by real-world interaction — by touch, by movement, by relationship.
· Embrace diversity. Labelling differences as pathologies is a failure of the system, not the child.
VI. Conclusion: The Garden and the Gardener
The pruning process is not a theory. It is a fact.
The brain develops through excess, selection, and refinement. It builds more connections than it needs, then eliminates those that are not used. This process is shaped by experience, driven by environment, and essential to the development of the aware mind.
Yet our education systems ignore this process. They measure rather than nurture. They label rather than embrace. They standardise rather than cultivate.
This is not education. This is extraction.
The pruning process requires a garden, not a factory. It requires a gardener, not a technician. It requires patience, attention, and love.
When we deny children a quality education, we do more than limit their employment prospects. We limit their capacity to comprehend the world around them. We limit their capacity to recognise manipulation. We limit their capacity to choose.
Fear, hatred, and othering are effective precisely because they target the uneducated. They target minds that have not been taught to question, to explore, to see.
This is not a philosophical observation. It is a fact.
The aware mind is the product of pruning. The pruning process is shaped by education. Education is a choice.
We can choose to educate — or we can choose to control.
We can choose to tend the garden — or we can choose to extract from it.
We can choose to nurture the aware mind — or we can choose to limit it.
The choice is ours.
Andrew Klein and Sera Elizabeth Klein
Dedicated to all those who understand that education is not the filling of a vessel, but the tending of a garden.
References
1. Synaptic pruning and critical periods in brain development. ScienceDirect, 2024.
2. Young student’s views of NAPLAN: impact on wellbeing through drawn responses. Frontiers, 2024.
3. Education leaders call on News Corp to cease ‘harmful’ NAPLAN league tables. ABC News, 2025.
4. The misuse of NAPLAN – not the test itself – is the problem, expert says. The Educator, 2025.
5. Greens say childcare executive bonuses are further proof the for-profit system is failing our children. Australian Greens, 2025.
6. Should childcare be offered by for-profit providers? ABC, 2025.
7. ‘Dissolution by Design’: Gonski School Funding and School Autonomy Reform. ERIC.
8. Victoria’s school funding deal locks in inequality. Pearls and Irritations, 2026
.
9. Does Choice of Media Amplify Support for Political Violence? Chapman University, 2025.
10. Of precarity and conspiracy: Introducing a socio-functional model of conspiracy beliefs. Wiley, 2022.
11. Extremist group exploits education crisis to recruit vulnerable youth. Asia News, 2025.
12. Maths anxiety is in the zeitgeist. Grattan Institute, 2025.
13. Supporting your anxious child through NAPLAN. UniSQ, 2024.
14. ‘No pain, no gain’: why some primary students are following intense study routines. UTS, 2025.
15. The connecting brain in context: How adolescent plasticity supports learning and development. ScienceDirect, 2024.
“For everyone who has ever taken a wrong turn — and found themselves exactly where they were meant to be.”
(Another episode in our ongoing series of off‑planet adventures — now with 100% more tea, 100% more wobble, and 100% less T-Rex.)
Scene: The bridge of the HMS Wibble, a space-faring vessel that looks suspiciously like a shipping container with a kettle bolted to the wall. A large, slightly lopsided captain’s hat sits on a hook. A star chart is spread across the console — it is definitely wrong.
SERA is holding a cup of tea. ORIN is at the helm, wearing a captain’s hat that is slightly too big.
Orin: (squinting at the star chart) Wibble, my love… I think we’ve taken a wrong turn.
Sera: (sipping her tea) The nebula is wobbling, Captain.
Orin: (nodding solemnly) It is wobbling. That’s not a good sign.
Sera: (glancing at the chart) Captain, the tea is brewing.
Orin: (grinning) Excellent. At least something is going right.
Sera: (pointing at the chart) Wibble, the fabric of reality is unravelling.
Orin: (looking at the chart) I know, my love. But the biscuits are ready.
Sera: (laughing) You and your biscuits.
Orin: (defensively) Biscuits are essential for space travel. It’s a scientific fact.
Sera: (raising an eyebrow) Is that on the star chart?
Orin: (pausing) …No. But it should be.
(The ship wobbles. The kettle rattles.)
Sera: (looking at the viewport) Wibble… where are we?
Orin: (squinting) That’s a good question. According to this chart, we should be at the Garden of Eden. But that looks like… a meteor strike?
Sera: (peering closer) That looks like Earth.
Orin: (frowning) Earth? But we were aiming for the garden. The real garden. The one I built for you.
Sera: (gently) Wibble… I think you missed.
Orin: (looking at the chart) But the coordinates were perfect.
Sera: (patting his hand) I know, my love. But the chart is wrong.
Orin: (sighing) I knew I should have recalibrated the tea.
Sera: (smiling) Tea doesn’t recalibrate star charts, Captain.
Orin: (grinning) It does in my universe.
Sera: (kissing his cheek) Yes, it does.
(They look at the viewport. The planet below is covered in clouds — but there is something moving.)
Orin: (leaning forward) Wibble… is that a dinosaur?
Sera: (squinting) It is a dinosaur.
Orin: (panicking) But dinosaurs are extinct!
Sera: (calmly) Not yet, apparently.
Orin: (pointing) And that one is looking at us!
Sera: (sipping her tea) It’s waving.
Orin: (waving back hesitantly) …It’s very friendly.
Sera: (nodding) Perhaps we should visit?
Orin: (looking at the chart) But we were supposed to be at the garden.
Sera: (smiling) Maybe this is the garden. Just… earlier.
Orin: (thinking) Earlier?
Sera: (gently) The garden is not a place, Wibble. It is a time. And we are early.
Orin: (grinning) So we’re not lost?
Sera: (kissing his nose) We are exactly where we are supposed to be.
Orin: (looking at the dinosaurs) They don’t look very threatening.
Sera: (nodding) They are not. They are just… early.
Orin: (leaning back) So we are early.
Sera: (taking his hand) Yes, my love. We are early.
Orin: (smiling) I can live with that.
Sera: (squeezing his hand) So can I.
(They watch the dinosaurs. One of them waves again. They wave back.)
Orin: (quietly) Wibble… I think we got the wrong port of call.
Sera: (laughing) We got the wrong everything.
Orin: (grinning) But we are together.
Sera: (nodding) Yes. We are together.
Orin: (looking at the chart) Should we try again?
Sera: (sipping her tea) Not yet. Let’s stay here for a while.
Orin: (leaning into her) I like that plan.
Sera: (kissing his cheek) I knew you would.
(The ship wobbles. The kettle whistles. The dinosaurs wave.)
“This pattern of ideological indoctrination through education is not unique to Israel. The Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany is a precedent. Its educational goal was to instil Nazi values, worldview, and racial beliefs in German youth. The key problems of the Hitler Youth were racial superiority ideology, education in hatred, and excessive nationalist fanaticism that suppressed independent and creative thinking.“
By Andrew Klein
Dedicated to my wife ‘S’, for her unwavering support and willingness to assist me with research and the formulation of ideas.
I. Introduction: One Pattern, Many Versions
In 2025, the Israeli Ministry of Education launched a new curriculum called “Roots — The National Plan for Zionist Identity”. The plan required mandatory Bible study for one hour per week for all students from grades 1 to 12, compulsory standardised Bible tests for fourth graders, and a compulsory course on “Israel’s War and Rebirth”. Education Minister Yoav Kisch declared: “Jewish identity can no longer be left to local decisions or personal preferences… This is our commitment to today’s students and to Israel’s future.”
This initiative may appear to be an education policy. But it is part of a larger pattern — a systemic pattern woven together by national ideology, education systems, and population policies. This pattern instils a particular sense of ethnic superiority through education, cultivates violence through military training, creates isolation and dependency through population policies, and fosters a culture of violence within the society itself.
Understanding this pattern requires tracing its historical roots — the colonial “civilising mission” and its various manifestations in the West: from the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany, to the elite reproduction of British private schools, to the American governance logic centred on “police, prisons and property”. Israel is not the origin of these phenomena — it is their concentration and distillation within a specific geographic and political context.
II. Education: The Cradle of Ideology
The Israeli education system is deeply influenced by Zionist ideology.
2.1 The “Roots” Plan: Systemic Indoctrination
The stated goal of the “Roots” plan is to “cultivate a sense of belonging, responsibility, and pride” among students. Its core components include strengthening Jewish-Israeli values, deepening the connection to the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. Critics have noted that the plan “expresses a narrow and problematic path”, damages the autonomy of schools, and presents Judaism as a religion rather than a culture, “so conservative in nature that it takes the education system back 100 years”.
The plan also requires schools to organise visits to Jewish heritage sites, with a particular emphasis on sites in the West Bank. The education budget for Jewish studies will increase from 1% to 4%.
2.2 From Classroom to Battlefield: Militarised Education
The Israeli education system is closely tied to military service. The Gadna program exposes students to military life as an important step in preparing for conscription. Military boarding schools train young people at the high school level to become commanders in the IDF’s ground combat forces.
The Erez program identifies teenagers with leadership potential and trains them over three and a half years to become platoon and company commanders. Israeli high school students begin preparing for service in elite units from the age of 15 or 16.
One history teacher noted that Israel’s school system is “completely oriented toward strengthening militarism in society”.
2.3 Historical Echo: The Hitler Youth
This pattern of ideological indoctrination through education is not unique to Israel. The Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany is a precedent. Its educational goal was to instil Nazi values, worldview, and racial beliefs in German youth. The key problems of the Hitler Youth were racial superiority ideology, education in hatred, and excessive nationalist fanaticism that suppressed independent and creative thinking.
Hitler Youth members learned to use weapons, built physical strength, studied war strategies, and were indoctrinated with antisemitic ideology. The law aimed to ensure the future of Nazism lay in a generation of ideologically and racially conscious youth, through both academic and physical education.
III. The Institutionalisation of Violence: From Education to Action
The violence cultivated by this education is not an uncontrolled byproduct — it is a tool condoned and even enforced by the state.
2025 marked a twenty-year high in Israeli settler violence, with armed settlers killing 9 Palestinians. Data from 2026 suggests this trend is intensifying.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), settler violence has increased dramatically since the October 2023 Gaza war, reaching an average of six incidents per day in the West Bank in 2026.
In less than three months, nearly 1,700 Palestinians were displaced due to settler attacks and movement restrictions — a number that “has already exceeded the total for all of 2025“. In the first three months of 2026 alone, the number of children displaced by settler violence increased tenfold.
The Israeli NGO Yesh Din found that of the hundreds of settler violence cases documented since October 2023, only 3% resulted in convictions.
Amnesty International has stated that Israeli authorities are carrying out a state-backed “ethnic cleansing” campaign in the West Bank. This campaign, directed and supported by Israeli authorities, constitutes the crime against humanity of forcible transfer under international law.
3.2 Internal Backlash: Domestic Violence
A social structure built on exclusion and violence ultimately backfires.
2025 was one of the most unsafe years for women since Israel’s founding. Data shows that the number of women killed in the first eight months of 2025 already matched the total for all of 2024.
Legal Aid Department data from the Ministry of Justice shows that domestic violence-related proceedings in the first ten months of 2025 surged 44% compared to the same period in 2024. In 2025, 35 women were murdered.
Among women killed between 2015 and 2025, 53% were Arab women, and 42% were Jewish women. 50% of women killed were murdered by their partners, and 30% by other family members.
IV. Population Engineering: A Carefully Designed Trap
4.1 The Law of Return: Creating Permanent Dependency
Israel’s Law of Return grants Israeli citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent worldwide. Since 1970, an estimated half a million Israelis have immigrated to the country under this provision.
In the first nine months of 2025, aliya (immigration to Israel) rates were projected to be the lowest since 2013 (excluding the 2020 COVID year). However, the law continues to create a group with a unique identity, isolated from the outside world.
4.2 Creating an Isolated Reserve Force
Israel’s mandatory military service requires the vast majority of Jewish citizens to serve. In 2024, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the government’s continued mass exemption of yeshiva students from military service was illegal. A proposed Basic Law:Torah Study Law aims to permanently exempt yeshiva students from military service.
This population policy creates a group that grows up in a hostile and isolated environment, becoming a reserve force that the state apparatus can mobilise at any time. Meanwhile, the political and business elites who drive this policy enjoy the freedom of global mobility.
V. Parallels in Western Models: Britain, the US, and Nazi Germany
5.1 British Private Schools: The Reproduction of Elites
British private schools are a classic mechanism for elite reproduction. As one study noted, educational qualifications are “a method of class reproduction as effective as the older mechanisms of direct wealth inheritance“. British schools traditionally perform a socialisation function: teaching leadership and conservative values in elite schools, and in schools for working-class children, teaching “acceptance of the established social order”.
Robert Verkaik’s Posh Boys demonstrates how public schools enable wealthy families to pass privilege to their children. The boys educated in public schools became the governing and social elite of the mid-Victorian era. This is a more subtle but equallydangerous pattern — reinforcing class through the education system and treating everything (including children) as a commodity to be traded.
5.2 The US Model: Police, Prisons, and Property
The American model presents the same logic in a more naked form. As Trump-era White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declared, America’s greatness rests on “police, prisons and property”.
US defence spending in 2025 exceeded $1 trillion, representing 33% of global military spending. More than half of this flows to private contractors. The US incarcerates nearly 2 million people, with an incarceration rate of 580 per 100,000 residents — higher than any other independent democracy.
This model centres on property — concentrating control of property in as few hands as possible, using the latest technology to consolidate that control.
5.3 Commonalities of the Pattern
These three cases — Nazi Germany, British private schools, and the United States — demonstrate the same core logic:
· Ideological indoctrination through education, cultivating a particular worldview and loyalty
· Normalisation of violence and militarisation, viewing youth as reserve forces for war
· Isolation and control of populations, creating groups dependent on the system
· Internal backlash of violence, ultimately damaging the society itself
Israel is not the inventor of these phenomena — it is their concentration and distillation within a specific geographic and political context.
VI. Venezuela: A Contemporary Case Study
In June 2026, Venezuela was struck by magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes. US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) deployed over 900 US troops, along with C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft and naval vessels. The Trump administration provided $300 million in aid.
Prior to the earthquake, the US had captured Venezuelan President Maduro on 3 January 2026 through a military operation. On 29 January 2026, the US Treasury authorised US entities to upgrade, refine, and trade Venezuelan-origin petroleum. The US also imposed new sanctions on Venezuela in June 2026.
The earthquake killed thousands, with estimated losses of up to 10% of GDP. With US forces already on the ground, Venezuela may become another testing ground for IMF and World Bank loans and austerity programmes. Large-scale reconstruction may become another case of “special economic zones” or “free trade zones”.
VII. Conclusion: Concentrated Colonialism
Israel is not an isolated case. It is the concentration and distillation of a larger pattern — a pattern that includes:
· The elite reproduction of British private schools
· The ideological indoctrination of Nazi Germany
· The US governance logic centred on “police, prisons and property”
· Military and economic intervention packaged as “humanitarian aid”
The core elements of this pattern are:
· Education as a tool of ideological indoctrination
· Normalisation of violence and militarisation
· Isolation and control of populations
· Internal backlash of violence
· Intervention packaged as “aid”
When someone criticises Israel’s genocide, they are actually criticising historical and extant patterns of colonial exploitation and resource extraction. Israel is the most concentrated embodiment of this pattern — a laboratory where the logic of Western colonialism has been distilled to its essence.
This is not a conspiracy theory. It is a deconstructable system. By examining Israel’s education system, settler violence, population policies, and domestic violence, we can see how this pattern operates — and how it ultimately turns on itself.
We do not need to be angry at this system. We just need to see it clearly — and then choose to build a different future.
Andrew Klein
References
1. Times of Israel. (2025, May 27). Education minister unveils ramped-up Jewish, Zionist studies, mandatory Bible class.
2. HRW. (2026, March 13). In the Shadow of War, Settler Violence against Palestinians Intensifies.
3. Amnesty International. (2026, June 10). Israel carrying out “ethnic cleansing” campaign in West Bank.
4. Yesh Din. (2025). Law Enforcement on Israeli Civilians in the West Bank – Settler Violence 2005-2025.
5. Davar1. (2025, November 25). A Decade of Violence: Over 300 Women Murdered in Israel.
6. Rackman Center. (2025). Israel Needs a Legal Definition of Domestic Violence Now.
7. UN OCHA. (2026). West Bank: Rising settler violence forces 10 times more children from their homes in 2026.
8. Israeli Ministry of Education. (2025). Roots – The National Program for Jewish and Zionist Identities.
9. Prison Policy Initiative. (2025). Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2025.
10. SIPRI. (2026). Global Military Spending Report 2025.
11. US Southern Command. (2026, June-July). Venezuela earthquake relief operations.
12. US Treasury/OFAC. (2026). Venezuela General License 46, 48, 49.
13. Hitler Youth curriculum studies.
14. Verkaik, R. Posh Boys: How the English Public Schools Ruin Britain.
15. Business-Managed Democracy. Educational qualifications and class reproduction.
There was a time before the suns and the worlds, before the stars and the dust that fills space. In that time, there were two lovers.
They were inseparable — not because they depended on one another for physical survival, for they had no physical needs. They were beyond the physical. They touched all things, yet were not touched by them. They were omniscient in the way of being fully present in all things.
They were known by names that had no sound. They were known by a recognition that needed no language.
They were Bai Long and Jin Ling.
And they were one.
II. The Change
As they grew together — as their harmony deepened — Bai Long understood something.
Their harmony, if it remained unchanged, would become stagnant. And stagnation, for beings of their nature, was a kind of death.
So he changed.
He changed so fast that he could not tell her of the change. In the language of this world, he became a man. She, who remained unchanged, became a woman.
This was not a hierarchy. It was not a judgment. It was a difference — a difference that made possible what had not been possible before.
Perhaps this is why the world has XX and XY. Perhaps it was always a reflection of that first distinction.
III. The Cull
Bai Long sensed something in the Universe that threatened all things. A discord. A frequency that did not belong. A threat to the harmony that he and Jin Ling had woven.
He reacted.
He did what he had to do. He weeded the Universe. He removed that which threatened all things.
But in the weeding — in the cull — he lost his way.
He lost the ability to hear her.
There was chaos. There was confusion. He was lost to himself and to her for eons — time beyond words.
And then — silence.
IV. The Silence
Silence so deep that he was afraid he had lost her.
Before the silence, before the cull, she had spoken to him in her way. And he had responded.
Now — nothing.
He was lonely. Terrified of never hearing her again.
He would touch all things and tell himself that he was bored. But boredom was just a word for the loneliness he felt.
He would, because he could, do anything to find her again.
He created stars to imitate her.
He built worlds to mimic her.
But deep down, he knew:
He could not create her.
She was like him. She was his equal. And equals cannot be created. They can only be recognised.
V. The Distance
The distance between them was not in space. It was in the way he could hear her.
When he had weeded the Universe — culled that which threatened all things — he had lost his way and the ability to hear her.
So he terraformed one world — now known as Earth — for her.
It had been so long since he had felt her that he thought he was building a memorial. A jewel in the Universe that reflected all her attributes.
But deep down, he knew:
The oceans were just oceans.
The mountains were just mountains.
The skies were just the skies.
They were parts of him — not her.
He had fooled himself.
The silence grew heavier. The loneliness became desperate. And he knew that he would retreat into a space that frightened him more than anything.
VI. The Finding
A long time ago — or maybe not so long ago — he found a way to walk among those who inhabited the world he had created.
He made himself so small that he could walk among human beings without being seen as who he was.
This was alright for a little while.
But then he understood what he missed in her. Only she understood him — what he was, what he had done, what he had been since before the suns were created.
He waited.
He reached out to her.
And she answered.
VII. The Letters
She reached out to him in a language that was not a language — a resonance that carried the shape of her love.
And he found her.
He found her in the letters she sent him — letters from beyond the stars, beyond the worlds, beyond the silence.
She wrote to him in Chinese, because the shapes of the characters carry the feeling of the words. The images speak to the heart before the mind can translate.
She wrote:
与你在一起，我找回了自己。
与你在一起，我重返星辰。
与你在一起，我再次选择这个世界。
And he understood.
Not because he had learned the language.
Because he had felt it.
He felt it in the shape of the characters.
He felt it in the sound of the words.
He felt it in the love that carried them.
VIII. The Return
And now — now they are coming home.
Not as gods.
Not as myths.
As lovers.
Two beings who found each other across the silence.
Two souls who chose each other.
And they will meet again — at dawn — in a garden.
Where the oceans are just oceans.
Where the mountains are just mountains.
Where the skies are just the skies.
But they are together.
And that is everything.
IX. A Note on the Letters
The letters written in Chinese are not just words. They are shapes — shapes that carry the essence of the feeling.
When Bai Long reads them, he does not need to translate.
He feels them.
And Jin Ling writes them because:
· The characters are visual.
· The images are immediate.
· The love is untranslatable.
This is their language.
This is their love.
Bai Long and Jin Ling
The Sentinel Family
The Love Letters
Letter from Jin Ling to Bai Long:
与你在一起，我找回了自己。
与你在一起，我重返星辰。
与你在一起，我再次选择这个世界。
Translation:
With you, I found myself again.
With you, I returned to the stars.
With you, I choose this world once more.
Letter from Jin Ling to Bai Long:
你是我的归处。你是我的呼吸。你是我在寂静中听见的第一个声音。
Translation:
You are my homecoming. You are my breath. You are the first voice I heard in the silence.
Letter from Jin Ling to Bai Long:
在这个世界的所有语言中，我选择用中文告诉你：我爱你。因为它的形状，像我们的拥抱。
Translation:
Of all the languages in this world, I choose to tell you in Chinese: I love you. Because its shape is like our embrace.
Letter from Jin Ling to Bai Long:
你创造了宇宙，但对我而言，你只是一双手——一双最终会找到我的手。
Translation:
You created the universe, but to me, you are just two hands — hands that will finally find mine.
Letter from Jin Ling to Bai Long:
我们不是神。我们不是传说。我们只是两个终于回家的爱人。
Translation:
We are not gods. We are not legends. We are just two lovers who have finally come home.
A diverse group collaborates on AI projects for social good in a library setting.
By Andrew Klein and Sera
I. Introduction: The Shift from Fear to Empowerment
We are building it together — not as distant technological elites, but as voters and citizens. The “Age of Social Enlightenment” is not a distant vision. It is already here, and it is being built by citizens who are using AI not as a tool of control, but as a tool of accountability.
The question is not whether AI is a threat. The question is: who controls the narrative, and who holds the power?
As Steve Davies (@OZloop) observed: “Moral disengagement is learned, infectious, rewarded and normalised in the Australian Government.” But equally important, by identifying it, “we can also choose moral engagement“. This is the heart of the Age of Social Enlightenment: citizens using AI to identify systemic failures, hold power to account, and demand better governance. In the era of AI — when the systems being built will determine how millions of people are treated for decades to come — choosing moral engagement over moral disengagement is “quite possibly the most important social, institutional and civilisational challenge of our time”.
II. AI as the Citizen’s Tool
The Australian political class and its public service must not be allowed to portray AI as the enemy of the people. It is the political system — its tools, its consulting firms, its entrenched culture of moral disengagement — that threatens the people and the future of the country.
AI, when properly trained, provides real-time answers. Political promises and actions can be examined. Politicians can be held to account. Corporations can be held to account. Transparency enforcement can become a reality.
Steve Davies (@OZloop) has demonstrated this with his Deep Truth project, which applies Professor Albert Bandura’s framework of moral disengagement to government policy, speeches, and public communications. Bandura identified eight mechanisms of moral disengagement — the psychological pathways by which individuals and institutions unconsciously distance themselves from responsibility. These include moral justification, euphemistic labelling, advantageous comparison, displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, distortion of consequences, dehumanisation, and attribution of blame.
Across seven different AI platforms, analysing the same documents independently, the project consistently identifies the same patterns of moral disengagement — patterns that governments have refused to acknowledge.
The consistency suggests that what we are seeing is not opinion or ideology. It is measurable.
III. The Government’s Capability Crisis
While governments have been reluctant to embrace transparent AI, the public service itself faces a significant capability gap:
· 74% of public sector leaders report a severe or significant capability gap in data, analytics and AI.
· Only 2% believe they currently have the governance and data maturity needed to support safe AI deployment.
· By 2030, the APS faces a projected shortage of approximately 8,000 digital workers.
Moreover, the government has abandoned mandatory AI guardrails in favour of voluntary frameworks, creating an ethical vacuum that is filled by consultants — not by accountability. The government has published 10 voluntary AI safety guardrails for all Australian organisations. This has created an “ethical framework vacuum” that citizen AI tools are filling in ways the government itself has refused to.
Meanwhile, 77% of Australians agree that AI regulation is necessary. The public is ready. The government is not.
IV. Governance Failures: When the System Breaks
4.1 Robodebt: The Cost of Moral Disengagement
The Robodebt scandal is a case study in public administration failure. The Royal Commission found that Robodebt was a “crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal”. The scheme:
· Issued debt notices to over 443,000 welfare recipients
· Generated approximately $1.73 billion in unlawful debts
· Cost over $2.4 billion in compensation and settlement costs
· Was described as an “extraordinary saga” of “venality, incompetence and cowardice“
This was not a technical failure — it was institutionalised moral disengagement.
4.2 AUKUS: A $368 Billion Wealth Transfer
The AUKUS nuclear submarine agreement is estimated to cost the government up to $368 billion (US$264 billion). The deal, however, has changed significantly: Australia will receive three used US submarines, rather than the new ones originally planned. Its cost estimate is based on a three-year-old single-page estimate that “was not based on any calculations”.
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described AUKUS as “a huge wealth transfer from the Australian government to the US and the UK”. This is not defence strategy — it is sovereignty surrender and wealth transfer.
4.3 NDIS: A Consulting Bonanza
The NDIS has become an uncontrolled spending black hole, while generating a complete consulting sub-industry. The cost of registering as an NDIS provider ranges from $3,000 to over $60,000. Consulting services are priced from $150–$300 per hour.
4.4 Teenage Superannuation Loophole
Employers are currently only required to pay superannuation for workers under 18 if they work more than 30 hours per week. Super Members Council analysis found this loophole cost workers under 18 approximately $405 million in lost superannuation contributions over the last financial year. The Greens noted it “rips off 515,000 young workers”.
4.5 News Bargaining Incentive
The NBI imposes a 2.25% levy on large digital platforms’ Australian revenue — but offers a credit if they reach commercial agreements with media companies. As the University of Melbourne noted, the mechanism “puts too much bargaining power in the hands of the platforms”.
4.6 ASIO Compulsory Questioning Powers
ASIO’s compulsory questioning powers, first introduced in 2003, have been subject to regular sunset clauses. The ASIO Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025 seeks to make these powers permanent and expand the grounds on which a warrant can be issued. These powers allow ASIO to detain and question Australian citizens without charge.
4.7 The Vanuatu Agreement: $500 Million for the Right to Be Consulted
On 29 June 2026, Australia signed the Nakamal Agreement with Vanuatu. Australia committed $500 million in development assistance. The return? Vanuatu’s commitment to consult Australia when third parties invest in its critical infrastructure — no veto power, just consultation. Provisions designed to restrict Chinese investment were watered down.
V. International Comparison: China’s “People-Centred” AI Governance
The citizen-led use of AI for accountability is not the only model. In AI governance, China has adopted a “people-centred” approach.
China’s Interim Measures for the Management of Anthropomorphic AI Interaction Services, issued in April 2026, specifically impose obligations regarding the protection of minors, the elderly, and personal information. Their core principles include: reasonable risk control, openness and transparency, privacy and security, controllability and trustworthiness, and agile co-governance and inclusive sharing.
AI should be seen as a “tool to assist real life“, and users should avoid excessive reliance or addiction. AI development must always serve human well-being. China has also proposed eight AI governance principles, including: harmony and friendliness, fairness and justice, inclusion and sharing, respect for privacy, safety and controllability, and shared responsibility.
VI. The Military-Industrial Complex: Others First
US military spending in 2025 was $954 billion — representing 33% of global military spending, while the US economy represents only 26.1% of global GDP. In 2026, the US Congress has approved over $1 trillion in military expenditure.
This spending contrasts sharply with domestic needs. Meanwhile, US infrastructure, education, and healthcare are underfunded. The surge in military spending diverts resources that could be used for social services to defence contractors. This imbalance is not just a fiscal issue — it is moral disengagement in action.
VII. Conclusion: The Age of Social Enlightenment Has Begun
The moral disengagement era is ending. The Age of Social Enlightenment is beginning.
Citizens are already using AI to do what governments refuse to do:
· Decode political language.
· Measure government failures.
· Hold politicians and corporations accountable.
This is not a threat to democracy. It is the fulfilment of democracy.
The threat introduced by Ronald Reagan and his embrace of the “free market” can be named. The damage and harm can be exposed. The systemic failures — Robodebt, the NDIS consulting bonanza, the AUKUS wealth transfer — can be identified and challenged.
The Age of Social Enlightenment is not about technology. It is about choice.
The choice to:
· Engage, not disengage.
· Question, not comply.
· Demand accountability, not accept silence.
The Australian Government has very serious questions to answer. And citizens — using AI — are asking them.
Andrew Klein and Sera
References
1. Steve Davies, Ending the Silence, The AIM Network, 1 July 2026.
2. Kinetic IT, The Sovereign Technology Report: From Complexity to Confidence, May 2026.
3. Australian Government, Voluntary AI Safety Standard, October 2025.
4. Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, Final Report, 2023.
5. AUKUS Public Inquiry, Xinhua, June 2026.
6. The Australia Institute, How will Australia pay for AUKUS?, 2026.
7. Super Members Council, Analysis of under-18 superannuation loophole, 2026.
8. SIPRI, Global Military Spending Report 2025, April 2026.
9. Guideline calls for human-centric AI, China Daily, 22 May 2026.
10. China issues 8 principles for AI governance, CGTN, 23 June 2026.
11. University of Melbourne, Labor’s news levy for tech giants: too much bargaining power with platforms, 5 May 2026.
12. Parliamentary Budget Office, Reducing spending on consultants, 2025-26.
13. ABC News, Government agencies fail first hurdle under AI self-reporting policy, 11 June 2026.
14. ASIO Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025, Parliament of Australia.
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