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Relating to Amadeus, and the idea that most of us fall into the inadequate/adequate categories fails to recognise that most of the work gets done. Even Salieri managed a career separate from Mozart. The silent majority of us are reasonably competent at the work we do and carry the burden of the lazy, cannot be bothered, time wasters that exist in every large organisation. When Musk tells us that eventually there will be no work to do, he talks through his posterior. Crops will be sown and harvested by machines set up and controlled by programs developed and tested by professionals. Clothing will be manufactured from cloth produced by machines from raw materials controlled by machines controlled by humans. Most raw material inputs will be controlled by professionals. Hospitals and health will remain largely unchanged by AI, as will the Care and Social Work professions.

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Yes Salieri manages a career. But he wants much more than that, doesn't he? He wants to be immortal, not adequate.

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The Israel-Hamas war. It is becoming increasingly obvious that there is no resolution to this conflict that is worth the slaughter of innocent people on both sides. While it took years for that realisation in Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan it is more urgent in Gaza where most of the casualties are innocent civilians. Let us all call out for a ceasefire and an end to the bombing by Israel of suspected Hamas control points. There will be no point in calling for Hamas to release the hostages but the UN and the Arab League should call for the release of all non military hostages, especially the old and young.

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Blah blah blah. Let’s not call for a ceasefire until hostages are back and Hamas is destroyed. Your moral relativism is duly noted and it’s not impressive but I guess you get to feel good about yourself.

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You obviously did not live through the time of the Vietnam War where Martin Luther King was appealing to Lyndon Johnson to stop the bombing. Then, a mere 30 years later we were into Afghanistan and Iraq and into the mindless slaughter of peoples who saw the West as invaders. There must come a time when blag, blag, blag is senseless and we use our influence to stop mindless slaughter, whoever is doing it, or providing the means of doing it. America could stop the Israeli bombing tomorrow if it stopped supplying the bombs.

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I did live through this. To compare Vietnam so far from the US to what Israel just saw coming from Gaza on October 7 is a sign of your comparing the non comparable. Think harder.

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Indeed. Think of the opportunities for the Palestinians to have their own State, run their own lives, not be dependent for 70% of their food from the EU. Think of Gaza, isolated from the rest of the world since 2005 by barbed wire fences. The rest of the Western world just stood by and watched this abomination happen before our eyes. We cannot allow the atrocities of October 7 to blind us to the need to do something about this situation. Stop the bombing, secure the release of the majority of the non military hostages, and get to work creating a Palestinian State on the West Bank of the Jordan.

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The abomination is Hamas. Have you seen the gorgeous hotel where they hid? The Blue Beach hotel? The large private home with swimming pool and tunnel openings under child’s bedroom? Who stole from everyone and built command and control centers under a major hospital. Hamas did.

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