In latter years I have occasionally wondered at how in some ways my life has resembled Forrest Gump’s, though at a lower profile, and I have never bared my rump to a national leader on television. 🙂

I have found myself at the cross-roads of many of the important social trends of our times, and my professional experience provided insights into major contemporary issues.

I was raised in a colonial family in the conservative North Queensland town of Innisfail, and I married into a Sri Lankan migrant family recently arrived to the mining town of Moranbah (only the second Asian family in town, and my wife was one of few people of colour at school, another being Cathy Freeman who was in her class).

We met at university in Townsville and so I resisted the pull from my parents to return to the farm after completing my degree, instead completing a PhD in marine science (pathobiology), which opened my eyes to the broader world and humanity and led me to join a cosmopolitan lifestyle and join the rural-urban migration.

Before leaving North Queensland we endured the emergence of Pauline Hanson and experienced family members proudly announcing their support for her. I also have endured regular subtle and overt racism within my family (the most recent examples being my father telling me “who would want to live next to Indians!”, and my parents relaying how they strongly objected to the commencement of a meeting beginning with an Acknowledgment of Country with “we don’t want that shit here!” which brought to tears the speaker, the mother of a school friend).

Professionally I worked in pathobiology and in biosecurity, spending 2.5 years in Canberra in biosecurity policy development (for prawns, crayfish, and other aquatic invertebrates).

Here again I found myself at the crossroads of globalisation and resistance to it as my family began growing bananas in addition to sugarcane, so the import risk analysis on bananas from the Philippines put us in conflict (as I was concerned for a fairer more equal world while also caring about my roots in farming).

Government policy development was not for me, and at the turn of the millennium – while it was the trend of the period – I joined the brain drain and took up research fellowships in France and then Germany. I was even mentioned in Australian Federal Government and industry reports on the brain drain.

Being an unofficial representative of this nation as a research fellow in Europe in the aftermath of the children overboard election was a low point. In Germany in 2002 we lived next to the US counsellor General in Munich and walked past machine gun-armed guards daily (always being slow to remove our keys from our pockets). 🙂

Returning to Australia two years later the then new housing bubble had pushed home ownership in Brisbane beyond the reach of a one income family dependent on a scientist academic wage, and after 1.5 years of unemployment, I retired from my profession at the age of 34.

I was considered an emerging world leader in aquatic pathobiology, but I failed to obtain financial security sufficient to support a family. We had delayed starting a family while I tried for that security, but when my wife fell pregnant time was up on my career.

I then became a stay at home Dad and have been for the past 17 years while I was the primary caregiver to two sons and the major support to my wife who has struggled to gain the professional recognition and reward she has deserved. The toll to her and our family has been profound.

Besides volunteering at school and at our sons’ sports, I have tried to contribute to society through blogging activities first from 2007 on the housing bubble including at a Community Cabinet meeting challenging Rudd and Swan to ensure their Government did not entrench a two-tiered, inequitable society. Rudd got annoyed, and Swan arrogantly told me face to face that anybody who thought negative gearing would be ended was dreaming.

After finally buying our own home in 2011, I concentrated on my family and working on our home.

In 2019 I founded MacroEdgo.com which was to be a blog about socioeconomics and investing. But I realised in late January 2020 the challenge humanity faced with the impending COVID-19 pandemic and I intensified my blogging to influence public concern about our response and to pressure Governments to respect the value of human life (arguing for borders to close and rapid lockdowns over a herd immunity strategy by natural infections).

Soon I realised that a former colleague and friend was at the centre of the storm. In 2000 I had visited Dr Shi Zengli at the Wuhan Institute of Virology after meeting her in 1998 at the laboratory where she did her PhD – the laboratory where I received a fellowship to work in 2001. We had lost contact since these times, but I soon learned that she was the scientist credited with proving the link between bats and the original SARS virus, and in fact she was affectionately (at the start) known as the ‘Batwoman’.

Very early in the pandemic I recognised that this would be a major shock to the psychology of humanity, and I believe it is fair to say that I was the first to publicly speak up on the likelihood of a ‘reset’ in the way we would collectively perceive our lives pre- and post-pandemic.

I called it “The Great Reset” based on my essay of that title published 30 March 2020.

Presently I am writing about these impacts and especially as we search for greater balance in how we live our lives, our mental health and impacts on the environment, along with how we identify in this new era.

Through my writing I have been clear that I am progressive and ‘left-leaning’ but I came from a very conservative right of the political centre upbringing where racism towards First Nations people was endemic.

What I have not really discussed is how I undertook that personal growth. The truth is that, like anybody raised in a colonialist society with deeply ingrained systemic racism, this personal growth will never be complete until the day I leave this world.

The critical element, I believe, is to discuss the experiences and events that made me realise that I wanted to change.

It is natural to assume this came when I met the beautiful young woman of colour who recently migrated to this country and who has been the love of my life, but that is only part of the story.

I believe that three specific events – actually 3 conversations that I had – were key to opening my mind and heart.

The first was when I had just turned 18, 2 years before I met my wife, at college at university when I stated the most racist thing that ever came from my mouth. It was a statement that revolved around genocide of First Nations Australians – something so vile I am too ashamed to repeat it even for this retell – which I had heard said many times by my senior male mentors and which I had never witnessed them held to account for saying so I assumed most Caucasians (at least from North Queensland/Innisfail) agreed.

I believe I probably knew it to be provocative saying it aloud amongst first years and other second and third years in orientation week, though of course no non-Caucasians were present (including the group of First Nations women I had developed close relationships with in my first year).

I felt the righteousness surge through my stiffening back as the words left my mouth, as I had observed in my male mentors.

My words were not met with a response by the other young Caucasians, they were just met with awkward silence.

But the real message was in their eyes. I immediately saw their hurt and shock, perhaps even welling of tears which these teenagers tried to abate to hide their natural vulnerability in that intensely image-conscious phase.

My initial response, like I had observed from my mentors, was to maintain my righteousness and stiffness in my body as the conversation quietly moved on to another topic.

That moment lived on in me for much, much longer, however.

Though I was not especially introspective at this stage, primarily an avoidance mechanism from the trauma which I had experienced in my early teenage years as my family fractured under the weight of trying to save the family farm from financial foreclosure, that feeling that came from seeing their hurt sparked the impetus for change.

I knew I did not want to be the type of person that caused such hurt to other people. And I knew that the hurt felt by these people would be dwarfed by the hurt it would cause to the objects of the vile statement – indigenous Australians.

The second and third conversations happened after a further 7 years.

After marrying we honeymooned in Singapore and then went on to Finland where I stayed on for 10 weeks as a research fellow still studying for my PhD.

The group of Finnish postgrad students who I befriended were the brightest and most open-minded people I had ever met, and I soon realised the negative impacts of Australia’s relative isolation in terms of how the everday person understands the broader world. All of my friends were around 10 years older than me which exacerbated that gap.

I was in the centre of Kuopio with an especially liberal-minded friend and, again, I repeated a very conservative – clueless – statement that I had often heard said, in support of capital punishment. Immediately I was met with an eloquent and intelligent response to which I had no counter, which I find is often the case for conservative viewpoints which then elicit the retort “that’s my view and I’m entitled to it!”

I quickly realised that whereas I could hold my own very well in discussions with peers at home, out in the broader world my very narrow view would show me up to be naive and, frankly, ridiculous.

In that moment I truly understood the need to think through situations before forming an opinion and expressing it.

The third conversation happened a year or two later. My wife was working in the centre of Townsville (in the mall) and came home a little late at busy periods. One evening around dusk she went behind her building to go to our car parked in a public car park and a group of young indigenous boys were entering the carpark at the other end. My wife assumed they were associated with a group of indigenous people commonly referred to as the ‘park people’ – homeless and prone to substance abuse and violence.

When she saw the boys she quickened her pace, as did they, and as she got to our car and locked the door, the boys slid their hands on the windows as she reversed out and drove off.

By the time she got home she was shaking with fear and anger. And she was beginning to say angry things – things which in my experience are commonly said about aboriginal people in North Queensland.

My initial impulse was to join in with her. But something stopped me. I knew that being angry was not an answer. It was not reflective of the reality of why these people are living in this way. And I knew that if we were to continue that hate, then it never stops – it just keeps on growing. I recall saying to my wife that if we want a society where you/we can feel like you/we belong, and our future children, then we cannot give in to anger towards others, and we need to understand the reasons why these things happen.

At this time I really began to understand the importance of opening my heart as well as my mind to what is happening in the world, so much so that I understood that no mind is truly open if the heart is not also open.

I chose the photograph at the head of this post as my profile photo on my MacroEdgo page on Facebook because it has always had very special meaning to me.

It is me sitting on my Dad’s GTS Monaro, one of the original 200 made identical to the Bathurst-winning car, at my uncle’s home where we had an extended family and friends BBQ every Sunday.

When I was younger its meaning lay in connection with my Dad. Now it has also grown to express the journey I have travelled from that little boy.

You see, that uncle was one (of several) of my male mentors who role-modelled strong racism. Moreover, that extended family network fell apart when his brave grandchildren revealed he was a paedophile.

The photograph is a reminder of just how much life can and does change.

I do not know if it shows in the photo, but in it I can see my innate shyness mixed with internal strength (and the metaphor in holding the fly squat) that might emerge if I was fortunate enough to find myself in the right environment.

I am proud of my journey, and of my contributions to humanity and especially to those closest to me and the love we share.

But I live with the burden that many who were most important to me in my early life are not.

Knowing how my story went is the only way that I have learned to love that 18 year old boy that spoke vile racist words.

Sadly my own family (of origin) consider that I was at my peak or best when I was 18, and have told me in numerous verbal and other ways that I am not the person I once was.

Life changes – at my core I have not – I just found the courage to be authentic and live with the principles I learned through my entire life.

Not many have covered the ground I have, and that is why I always believed there was value to humanity in me sharing my journey in the best way I could.

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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2022

Quiet Quitting – An employee doing what they are paid to do to the best of their ability, but doing no more. At its basis this is about a worker setting boundaries to not be exploited by an employer and is thus a rejection of Extreme capitalism that assumes an employee will accept any and all ‘opportunities’ for a chance to ‘get ahead’, i.e. build more wealth in competition with colleagues and in broader society to acquire more material and status goods. Some QQs may be prepared to do more work, to the best of their ability, if paid. Others are not interested in doing more work, even if paid fairly for it, because they recognise the extra costs to them of that work in terms of their broader roles in society and the impacts on their health, and because they have deprioritised the acquisition of material and status goods.

Quiet Firing – An employer, most often a manager or group of managers, deciding that a worker or group of workers is no longer beneficial to them – or perhaps the worker(s) has tried to improve the culture which threatens the manager(s) as in the case of ‘whistleblowers’ – so the workplace is made intentionally hostile to that worker or group of workers to psychologically coerce them to leave rather than them being overtly fired with potential costs including, but not limited to, legal action or bringing extra attention to the manager(s) internally or externally. Results in greater toxicity, because those implementing such a strategy are inauthentic and incapable of the authentic compassion and empathy necessary for a healthy work culture, which may be counteracted by offering (real or illusory) enticements to others to encourage the isolation of those being quiet fired so that colleagues lose their own empathy and compassion for their colleagues who are being mistreated.

Loud Quitting – Is when an employee has become so disillusioned with a workplace that they will leave but will not do so quietly taking to social media and other means to expose the toxic workplace culture responsible for traumatising them. Many career advisers suggest that this is an error for the worker, and while there is some validity to the view that there may be career consequences, it is important to not trivialise the trauma to which the employee has been subjected especially when their voice (cries/pleas) was disregarded. I do not profess to know what was going through that dear, precious woman’s mind, but it would appear to me very obvious that by taking her life by jumping off the Ernst & Young building where she worked, for very long hours in an environment she had told friends she was mistreated, Aishwarya Venkatachalam’s final statement to the world was a piercingly loud one against toxic workplace culture and racism. As a society we cannot let that statement pass without action – we must not remain tone deaf to these cries for help from very many amongst us! #sayhername

First Published on LinkedIn on 21 September 2022

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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2022

Quiet quitting – the term – is a misnomer. 

Most assume that it is about quitting on a job. It is not.

It is about quitting, or refusing to participate, in a system that has progressively become unsustainable because it is unfulfilling and unhealthy to those within it.

Extreme capitalism is what is being quit!

Quiet quitting is an appropriate and compassionate action to take and it is a part of major changes that come together in a new era which I refer to as the Great Reset.

What needs to be asked is not whether it is acceptable that a colleague does just what they are paid to do, nothing more, nothing less.

What really needs to be asked is whether a colleague should be permitted to outcompete others purely in terms of hours worked.

If someone feels insecure at proving their value from a set number of working hours, with their unique combination of hard, intense and efficient work (relating to intelligence including EQ), should they be permitted to work uncapped hours to outcompete others who may not be able to work extra hours because of any number of reasons related to their broader lives (i.e. parenthood, other caring roles, and other giving roles within society including self-development and self-care)?

Of course the employers and self-interested managers within the system are not going to recognise this and support or even agree with the need for this change; Extreme capitalism benefits their self-interests and many feel they are due this from subordinates or employees because it is what they did to achieve their status.

With no cap to permitted work hours, within a system based on domination from imperialist white-supremacist patriarchy, insecure workers in large organisations take on more and more meaningless, ‘bullshit’ (from David Graeber’s work), just-in-case tasks that are pointless and soul-destroying, while in small business they remain vulnerable to exploitation as there are few other options where a compassion imperative is enacted.

Like all Real change this is being driven by people power. 

It requires self-reflection on what is really important in your life. Many have done that work for themselves through the pandemic and have decided to quietly quit on Extreme capitalism.

There is nothing to be afraid of, you just need to be honest with yourself on one question – Did I feel fulfilled with the life that I was living in 2019?

If the honest answer is No, then you need to ask yourself whether you really want to return to it as pandemic measures become forgotten and employers push for a return to ‘normal’, the normal that favoured them so greatly.

Perhaps quiet quitting is the most compassionate thing you can do for you.

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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2022

In “The Great Reset: An explainer” I gave a brief description of the political and economic backdrop that led to humanity entering the pandemic at a moment of social extreme with a paradigm shift due or even overdue.

I explained that trends in society tend to occur in cycles that can be conceptualised as a swinging pendulum.

The truth is that this concept is simplified because it infers that trends oscillate around a stationary point but we know that – no matter how much conservatives seem to dislike the idea of it, at least over shorter time frames – human society has progressed an awful lot since we mastered fire and put circles to work (as wheels and then gears).

So intuitively most of us understand that our societies progress over time, but most of us also recognise that there are periods where change seems to happen quickly, and there are other times when change happens slowly, or perhaps conditions even go backwards. In many ways we see societal progress over time as the diagram below shows, a wavy line but generally heading up to the top right hand corner of the graph.

To make the situation even more complex we all understand that societal progress is in reality a whole host of factors ranging from major issues such as how we view inequity in wealth (the major idea discussed in the ‘explainer’) to relatively minor factors such as how we choose to dress and present ourselves, though older members of society through history have often treated these as far more significant issues (for example in the 1960s when young people as a cohort really began to express their individuality). That is in part an over-reaction from those who feel insecure that they are no longer a part of the demographic that sets trends within society, but it is also a reflection that all of these trends intersect to produce an overall view of societal progress.

In other words, if we were to narrow in on that wavy line of progress we would notice that it is the overall trend, but that there are an infinite number of trend lines – some more significant, some less significant, some oscillating more slowly, others more rapidly – that together make up the overall trend. This is a little like zooming in on a Google map revealing progressively smaller roads which are less and less significant to the overall way people move around, but that does not mean that those very minor roads are less significant to all of us (e.g. those who live nearby in the case of roads).

Of course the relationship between capital and labour – those who have large pools of resources and wealth at their disposal, both personally and/or as a consequence of status or position within society, and those who do not – has always been one of the most critical trends affecting human progress.

Now these wavy lines of social progress can still be reconciled with the swinging pendulum concept if we think two-dimensionally, or in the second derivative as some who like maths prefer to say.

If you are not a fan of mathematics, let me explain it this way. Imagine that you have an animation of a singing pendulum on your phone which you are looking at on the face of your phone. Turn the phone a quarter turn so it is at a right-angle to you and then gradually raise your phone as you move it from left to right while visualising in your mind the position of the round end of the pendulum. Hopefully you can visualise it tracing a wavy line like the one above.

Now in this concept I intentionally chose a pendulum singing widely and above the centre point because that is how progress has occurred for humanity to this point as I described in my explainer. The path of the centre point of that pendulum swing is drawn on the next diagram to show that it indeed rises at a constant stable rate but that there are moments of extreme when the pendulum approaches a course change at the top of its swing.

I referred to this concept of an upwardly rising pendulum for societal progress in an earlier essay entitled “How Might Milton Friedman Respond To The COVID-19 Pandemic“. Friedman is considered a hero of conservatives as it was in large part his intellectual rigor that led to the reforms of the 1980s most famously implemented in the US by President Reagan and in the UK by Prime Minister Thatcher due to their veneration by Anglophone conservatives. In Australia reforms around this time were implemented by the centre-left Hawke/Keating governments.

The main point of that essay was to say that I believe that the Mr. Friedman who wrote “The Social Responsibility Of Business Is To Increase Its Profits” in 1970, if he were brought forward in time to assist humanity in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by allowing his economic rigor to intersect with recommendations of medical experts, would not have recognised the economies that he was dealing with because it would be unfathomable to him the extreme to which his ideas had been taken. Thus I posited that he would have said that if he was to formulate a response to the COVID-19 pandemic he would not be starting from here!

There is no need to rehash exactly where we are, in my view, in an observational sense as it would be a repeat of that essay and much else that I have written over the past 3 years including most recently in “The Great Reset: An explainer” and in “The Great Reset At Work“. Instead I will label the most recent half century of that wavy line of social progress with dates as below showing how through the 2010’s the pendulum was at an extreme and its direction change has created the perception that our progress is actually retarding.

However, if we narrow in on the model for the present day and through the next few decades this model explains exactly why I am ultimately very optimistic.

I firmly believe that we are setting ourselves up for a golden Great Reset era where social progress will accelerate on the back of significant reform which is possible because humanity is primed for that change no matter how much conservative and other right wing political actors attempt to scare the population away from the idea of social progress (again, which I will not discuss as I have on many occasions, most recently in “The Great Reset Era At Work“).

The evidence of this is pervasive through society in the way that we communicate and tell stories, i.e. through all of our media, and is apparent to anyone perceptive to it. And my perception is that this is indeed accelerating as I would expect to happen.

Much of that change will centre around how we identify with ourselves in the Great Reset era, and at the centre of that will be the role of paid employment and creating a better balance between it and our broader lives and roles in society. Thus industrial relations is shaping up, once again, to be a focal point. 

Given the level of inequality, debt, and middle-class erosion, however, the breadth of dissatisfaction expressed and change desired will surprise many corporate and organisational leaders and leave many flat-footed and unable to adjust. The impacts will not be felt just in poor performance of organisations under their influence, it may prove fatal if toxic workplace culture is exposed through the legal systems as I anticipated in “The Great Reset At Work“.

Simply Milton Friedman’s profit imperative is being replaced by a compassion imperative.

The corporate leader who has best articulated this change to this point is Indra Nooyi and I recommend this video to all.

In my next post I will describe one idea which I believe its time has come and which has the potential to unleash human potential in unimaginable leaps and bounds – the introduction of universal basic income. 

Before I close, however, I feel I need to go negative once more because that is still the mood of this phase of the Great Reset era, and it is appropriate because it spells out exactly what is at stake.

As this model of social progress shows, and as most of us know intuitively when we think over the very long term, humanity is continually at its most progressed state even though there are periods where we perceive we may be regressing, sometimes for long periods such as in Middle Ages (for a brilliant blog post on this see On Progress And Historical Change at Ex Urbe).

We look back and wonder – either actively or subconsciously – how was it that we lived without developed language skills and proper shelter, without knowledge that mercury and lead were poisonous, without electricity and modern mechanisation, and without labour and human rights protections.

Many of us take that one step further and wonder how our current societies will be viewed in centuries ahead, and as our science continues to progress, what commonly used substances and practices will ultimately be proven to do us more harm than good.

I am of the opinion that this period over the past half century will be viewed dimly because, for all of our smug contempt for our ‘primitive’ forebears, we have lost our sense of community as self-interest has led to the ‘democratisation’ of human beings harming human beings as people have fallen for the Extreme capitalist propaganda that status benefits (materialism and ego) from ‘winning’ outweigh the benefits of deep and rich connection with our societies. 

There are no real winners in Extreme capitalism, just an unquenchable aspiration for more wins and more things. 

Even the ‘winners’ and ‘owners’ are hurting, they just cannot admit that to themselves let alone others.

A culture of domination nourishes nobody.

And when it comes to the unsustainable use of our finite resources, we are all losers even if many still refuse to admit their error.

The extreme self-interest exhibited by our leaders within the political and corporate spheres has been especially harmful. It is hardly a surprise that this type of behaviour has been imitated widely throughout society, after all, there is a reason why the term ‘leader’ developed.

For my entire life I have lived in a society where nothing is valued, not an action, thought or thing, unless at least one other is prepared to pay for it. Now that the mental health impacts of all of this are becoming understood, mainly because it is impacting the profitability and functioning of businesses, there is growing acceptance of the critical need to address mental health. But there is no market value in acknowledging that this crisis stems from the unquenchable aspiration at the heart of Extreme capitalism.

The evidence now shows that diverse, equitable and inclusive workplaces are more profitable. So finally we have sufficient reason to be fair to all human beings within organisations, if only we would genuinely commit to achieving it!

And what about equality on a global basis?

That our society has devolved to the point where human beings being good to other human beings is only prudent when it is profitable says everything about us as a modern society.

The most striking peacock is equally vulnerable to the same diseases as the rest of the flock, the toughest fighting male salmon soon meets the same fate as the vanquished, and the hardest working bee will survive not one day without a hive.

The success of humankind was not built on the individual, it was built on the collective support of individuals within our society. If we wish to unleash humanity’s full potential we need to collectively support all individuals with compassion and love. 

That is at the heart of the Great Reset era…

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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2022

At this point in the Great Reset era we have heard most about the Great Resignation (or Great Reshuffle) which is unsurprising as businesses wonder aloud why they are finding it challenging to retain their workers and how to attract talented workers.

Some employers are even sceptical, and have suggested workers may regret their actions, especially as interest rate increases result in more challenging economic times which employers believe will give them more leverage over their workers.

Those who lead organisations would be wise to accept that the Great Resignation is just one, albeit important, feature of this new Great Reset era.

What is occurring is much deeper and goes to our identity and our perceptions of self-value.

Collectively we are all acknowledging that our lives are short and precious, and that we want to live the best versions of ourselves.

While the majority of us continue to trade for income our most valuable time and energy of our lives – for over 40 hrs each week for 48 to 50 weeks each year from our late teens or early 20s through to our 60s – we are going to continually assess whether that situation is working for us and whether it allows us to be who we really want to be.

Organisations that thrive in the Great Reset era will be those whose leaders engage authentically and deeply in compassionate wellness with their fellow human beings.

Published on LinkedIn on 9 August 2022.

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© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2022