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I had not previously been aware that the rules of parliamentary broadcasting preclude "satire and ridicule". Annabel Crabb raises the issue at the ABC, and reports that many politicians themselves are unaware of this.

First, prohibiting ridicule does seem a little redundant. One may well decree that there shalt be no ridicule, but it's meaningless when the regular vacuum of sanity and cool-headedness in the chamber simply pulls in ridicule from all angles, irrespective of intent. An analogy might involve trying to bail water out of a ship that is not merely full of holes, but simply lacks a hull altogether. The attempt to prohibit ridicule is itself just a little ridiculous.

Satire, meanwhile, might actually make Question Time watchable at some level, without immediate risk of brain malfunction (see my previous Venn diagram). The provision against satire reminded me, of course, of the royal wedding, in which ABC2 and The Chaser were prevented from making the whole viewing experience worthwhile. More seriously, satire is essential for a healthy democracy. It is one of the most important forms of free speech, because, unlike political slogans, rhetoric and the like, it works with and gives force to nuance. It tears down idiocy mercilessly and reveals inconsistencies in public discourse that might otherwise be blunted by conventional narratives and sensibilities.

A satirical take on Question Time would not just be more entertaining than our current straight broadcasts, but ultimately even more important. It is important that we laugh at our leaders' attempts at manipulating public opinion, because that's our best shield against it.

However, there are conceivable technological workarounds for this sort of thing. A satirical broadcast could, in principle, be split into the original footage and some set of superimposed or overlaid video, audio and programmatic instructions for automatically combining them. These elements, when combined, could produce a seamless work of satire. However, imagine further that the actual combining is done by a piece of software on the viewer's television, computer, etc., and that up until that point they are separate data streams, provided even by separate organisations.

Organisation A provides the original, unadulterated footage, while organisation B provides the satirical overlay. Organisation A cannot be held responsible because it has nothing to do with the satire. Organisation B cannot be held responsible because it isn't broadcasting the footage. (None of this is especially novel, I suspect, though I haven't really investigated.)

Maybe I'm missing some legal subtlety here. Maybe there's still some arcane legal case against organisation B - I don't know - but if the technological means fell into place (and it's really just a matter of writing the software), I don't immediately see how any legal avenue could plausibly stop it.

Fresh from pontificating on the principles at stake in allowing Lord Christopher Monckton to receive the support of a university in his inane ramblings, I find myself unable to let go of the subject.

My comment on an article by Anson Cameron at The Drum didn't apparently make it has now past moderation¹. (That might seem like poetic justice, perhaps, given that the letter I supported was widely characterised as an attempt to deprive poor Monckton of his right to free speech. Except, of course, that I was trying to point out that the letter was no such thing, and that I myself support Monckton's right to free speech.)

This post isn't the comment in question (which was more of a condensed version of my last post).

Cameron is clearly not a fan of Monckton, and does an admirable job of listing the Lord's many and varied acts of ignorance, dishonesty and outright madness. However, then comes this paragraph:

I implore the academy not to add Viscount Monckton to the long and distinguished list of the gagged and banned. He does not deserve to stand alongside Aung San Suu Kyi, Mandela, Darwin or Mick Jagger. If the Academy gags Lord Monckton it will reward  him with a wholly undeserved gravitas, and afford him the glow of the messiah among his flock. Censored by lefties and eggheads sponging off our tax dollar, the things he wasn’t allowed to say will take on an unwarranted profundity. The flock will be whispering of NATO, a world government, thought-control, and only fearless mavericks like the Viscount standing in the way of a global communist dystopia.

I'm not sure what Cameron thinks academia can possibly do to place Monckton in such a hallowed (and inexplicable) company. Academia is not the Burmese military junta; it does not have its own private army waiting to whisk away those who dissent. You might think I'm being a little patronising here, but really - stopping someone speaking at a university compares to locking them away for decades as a political prisoner? You don't get to compare yourself to Aung San Suu Kyi or Nelson Mandela just because you've been declared a fruitcake by a group of lecturers and researchers. That sounds rather too much like the Galileo Gambit. Cameron's further mention of Mick Jagger sounds rather too much like taking the piss. You think academia is going to turn Monckton into a rock star? I'm not sure that's how it normally works.

The next bit is also a bit of a giveaway: "the things he wasn’t allowed to say will take on an unwarranted profundity." That's logically impossible. How can anyone know what things Monckton would have said but didn't? He would have said them regardless, of course, as Cameron no doubt realises. That means, of course, that Monckton was never in danger of being silenced - a fact that ought to be perfectly obvious, but nonetheless has been shoved aside in order to perpetuate the censorship narrative. Cameron's concerns are also rather redundant, since Monckton's words already have taken on grossly unwarranted profundity, through no fault of academia. It's hard to see how his Lordship's blatherings could be inflated further still (without sending those involved into a coma of self-righteousness).

Cameron goes on to conclude:

If a person can be banned from University for speaking ignorantly and superstitiously Jesus will have to set up his soapbox across the road from Notre Dame when he returns and shout through the chain-link fence with a bullhorn.

"Ban" is rather misleading here. Except in matters of criminal law, as I understand it, you cannot really be banned from a university (at least, not the kind of university I'm familiar with). Any member of the public is free to stroll across campus and even attend lectures. There just isn't any chain-link fence to be self-righteous behind. The intent of the letter was simply to not give Monckton the podium at a university. Most people do not and will never have that privilege anyway, so it's hardly a matter of fundamental rights. Monckton (or Jesus) can set up his own soap box, but he'll look a lot less dignified gesticulating by the roadside than in a university lecture theatre.

Moreover, in spite of Monckton's lecture going ahead as planned, I've heard barely a whisper of information on what was actually said. The whole event was essentially self-censored (it was invitation-only), irrespective of the letter itself. We ended up with the worst of both worlds: a quarantined lecture, and the symbolism of a university lending its podium to a raving self-promoter and purveyor of nonsense. Free speech indeed.

1. I'm very slightly suspicious of the fact that only 18 comments did appear, when such controversial topics often seem to attract a hundred or more. Perhaps I'm being overly suspicious, though, and people really do have better things to do. The comment count suddenly jumped from 18 to 195, presumably thanks to some mind-bendingly tedious and thankless work by overwhelmed moderators. [↩]

His Great and Wondrous Beneficence the Lord Christopher Monckton did, after all, give a lecture at Notre Dame University. Attempts (initiated by Natalie Latter) to dissuade Notre Dame from lending Monckton its credibility did not come to fruition, though drawing attention to his Lordship's rank lunacy is always a small victory in itself.

As the letter puts it:

We all support academic freedom and the freedom to express our ideas and beliefs. However, Notre Dame University has a responsibility to avoid promoting discredited views on an issue of public risk. Notre Dame's invitation to Lord Monckton makes a mockery of academic standards and the pursuit of evidence-based knowledge.

This has been laughably characterised as an attempt to "gag" Monckton (who has a minor obsession with characterising people as fascists and war criminals, suggesting for instance that climate scientists ought to stand trial for genocide). Does anyone honestly think that Monckton actually could have been gagged?

This call to preserve academic standards morphed (perhaps predictably) into a spurious fight for free speech. Tell me, dear reader: when was the last time you exercised your apparently fundamental democratic right to give a public lecture at a university?¹ Do you believe that you have that right; that a university has a duty to invite you to give a lecture if you see fit to give one? Why should Monckton be afforded this privilege, when clearly "ordinary" members of the public are not?

Some, such as Professor Chris Doepel at Notre Dame, argue that all points of view must be heard. This is the refrain we hear from creationists asking that "Intelligent Design" be taught in schools. It's a convenient rhetorical tool for engineering doubt. The consensus of virtually all the relevant experts, arrived at by considering the entire gamut of objective data collection and analysis conducted over decades, is made to look like only one set of opinions, rivaled by another set of opinions formed simply by making things up. Doepel makes the following self-refuting remark:

The university does not take a view one way or the other on the positions advocated by Christopher Monckton.

But that is a position on Monckton. An individual person might legitimately claim not to know enough to form an opinion², but it beggars belief that a university - a place wherein truth is uncovered and disseminated - would have formed no position on one of the most outspoken and controversial figures of our time. A refusal to condemn Monckton's views, for an institution that cannot possibly claim ignorance of what he stands for, is effectively an endorsement of those views. We certainly know where Notre Dame stands on legitimate climate research and climate action, then.

Others (such as the Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt) believe we should just let Monckton speak, and take the time to refute his claims. But this is to accept the false dichotomy that either he be allowed to speak wherever he likes, at any institution, or we tie him up in the basement. Monckton was clearly never in any danger of actually being silenced, not even if Notre Dame had heeded the call to preserve its academic integrity. Universities have credibility in the first place precisely because they discriminate between views supported by evidence and views not so supported (the same as scientific journals, and the scientific process in general). One can delude oneself into thinking that this is somehow undemocratic, but then reality isn't democratic. At some point, for the sake of advancing the human cause, we must stand up and pass judgement; not on each other, but on our ideas. Science, technology, economics, etc. are not served simply by sitting and listening politely and "fairly" to endless regurgitations of refuted arguments. We have the media and the Internet for that; universities should know better.

Some believe we should just ignore Monckton. However, the man is steering the public debate in ways that are fundamentally detrimental to the prospects for sensible policy making. We cannot just ignore him. Academic institutional credibility aside, he already has all the media coverage anyone could dream of. This isn't the result of some PR folly by his critics, but rather his oratory skills and the cozy hardline ideological relationship he has with some very loud and obnoxious media personalities.

It is incumbent upon academics to preserve the integrity of their institutions, and to confront misinformation that threatens to derail rational decision making. Free speech is a right, no doubt, but credibility must be earned.

1. It is entirely possible, I suppose, that you have indeed given a public lecture at a university, but I think you'll agree that it's not exactly a right. [↩]
2. I sometimes admire those willing to admit ignorance rather than pick whichever view "feels" better. [↩]

Bob Katter is doubtless one of the most open and sincere members of federal parliament (along with the other independent MPs). As everyone knows, such qualities are easily discarded by career politicians as they manoeuvre their way around the fickle whims of the electorate, the propaganda of special interest groups and the machinations of their adversaries (both inside and outside their party).

Katter's basic problem, however, is that he's bonkers. He's not stupid by any means, but he does appear to be cocooned in a bubble universe in which concerns like economics and the environment are but a faint distorted glimmer of background radiation.

The Katterverse, refreshingly, does not easily fall into the left-right paradigm. You can verify this by perusing his new Australia Party's policies. Bob wants government economic intervention like there was no tomorrow, but opposes the "nanny state"¹. He doesn't care one way or the other about Tony Abbott's boat-arrivals cataclysm, but opposes the carbon tax (and presumably, by extension, any form of carbon pricing).

Conversely, and perhaps unfortunately for Katter, this means that anyone mired in realpolitik isn't going to be easily talked around to his point of view. The left-right spectrum is one of my pet hates², but it does at least broadly cover the range of plausible economic policies. You can opt for well-funded government services so long as you're prepared for high taxation, or you can choose low-taxation so long as you don't expect much government help. Katter, on the other hand, represents the archetypal selfish voter; he wants the government to give everything and take nothing, thinking perhaps (as many voters must do) that the only thing standing in the way of such impossible utopia is pig-headed political intransigence. This disconnect doesn't matter so much when you're a Katter-style "maverick independent", but if you actually want a say in government policy, the world "compromise" is going to have to cross your lips more than a few times.

1. "Opposing the nanny state", I find, is often a euphemism for "Why the hell should I be prevented from endangering the public?" [↩]
2. It seems spurious and disingenuous to use "left" and "right" in reference to non-economic issues, where labels like "libertarian", "environmentalist", "religious", "secular", etc. are surely far more descriptive and less open to misinterpretation and rhetorical abuse. [↩]

In news from America, Donald Trump has "accomplished something that nobody else has been able to accomplish" - the final clinching proof that the sitting US President was, in fact, born exactly where he said he was. What a marvellous achievement. Clearly, in deference to such awesome influence, said sitting US President, having just been vindicated, should be thrown out and replaced with the man apparently dedicated to publicly obsessing over the non-issue.

I can't be the only one who perceives that, by releasing his birth certificate now, Obama is trying to wedge the US Republicans.

The timing was crucial, you see. The "birther" conspiracy theorists have had years to consolidate their ironclad counter-reality belief that Obama was born in Foreignstan. They are not going to be convinced by anything so trifling and mundane as a complete, unambiguous, authoritative, factual refutation of their case. They have invested too much time and effort. Their reaction can only be to push further into denialism and suggest ever-wider and more elaborate conspiracies.

The longer this story lives, the less news converage there will be of "serious" Republican presidential candidates, and presumably therefore the less interested everyone will be in voting Republican. This cannot be lost on Obama.

This isn't the way it should be, of course (in case you thought I was gloating). I'm not heavily invested in US politics, but democracy is not served by having denialism steal the limelight, even when it is self-destructive. It's hard to blame Obama for the lack of a credible opponent, of course, but a credible opponent there should always be.

I agree wholeheartedly with Jonathan Holmes' article (and his April 4 episode of Media Watch) on Andrew Bolt. There are probably a few essays now floating around expressing a similar sentiment on Bolt's run-in with the Racial Discrimination Act.

Australia doesn't have an institutionalised right to free speech (except political speech, as narrowly implied by the electoral provisions of our constitution). However, there is near universal agreement that free speech is a fundamental right. The preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, in part:

The advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people.

Most of us do acknowledge that speech cannot be completely free. There are privacy rights to consider. There are libel and defamation laws that offer a defence against malicious untruths. There are also security, diplomatic and intellectual property issues that require a degree of secrecy.

Most of us also abhor racially-motivated hate speech. I can support laws against incitement to commit acts of violence or discrimination (e.g. Section 17 of the Racial Discrimination Act), because (though I'm not a lawyer) that offence seems fairly easy to define and has an immediate impact on the safety and opportunities of others. Not so the consequences of speech that is merely "offensive, insulting, humiliating or intimidating", as outlawed in Section 18C. Those criteria are more than enough to publicly condemn the speaker, but not nearly enough to deserve legal proceedings.

The kinds of acts being outlawed in Section 18C might be vicious, cruel, and stupifyingly inane, but they are not defamation and not incitement, and nobody's safety or opportunities are compromised by them. Most of us (I hope) would loosely agree that things should be legal unless there is a compelling case to make them otherwise, and I simply don't believe that case has been made here. The law is not a scalpel we can use to extract cancerous thought - it is a blunt instrument to help prevent tangible wrongdoing.

Andrew Bolt is a true test of our commitment to free speech, because he says almost nothing of value. Any reasonable person would deride almost everything he stands for. His sneers at people of other races and cultures, at the scientific and academic establishment, at anyone else tenuously associated with "the Left", are worthy of nothing but pity and derision. If he were to engage in defamation or incitement, throw the book at him by all means, but otherwise leave him to his deranged ramblings.

In the general case, Section 18C has clearly not been enforced with much conviction. Bolt and like-minded ideologues have so far gotten away with a great many acts that would seem to be prohibited. If enforcement ever did suddenly become an overwhelming priority, I expect the situation would rapidly descend into farce, with a million bigots mobilised and screeching obscenities into every possible medium. Their White Christmases would all come at once. It would, in other words, backfire spectacularly. The instinct to ban hate speech is motivated by a commendable desire to change minds (or at least to prevent them being perverted by hatred), but the law is exactly the wrong tool for the job.

Free speech is not about saying nice things. We have no need of laws to protect our right to talk about the weather, sports or cooking. Free speech is about protecting those who offend us, because it is precisely this group that is otherwise perpetually in danger of being shut down, or sent underground. Sometimes, the offending remark is itself more enlightened than those offended by it, and so does more good than harm, but not always. Even when the message has no redeeming value whatsoever - even when it demonises the most vulnerable - free speech is about protecting society from itself, while also providing the only useful way to fight back.

One of the most effective arguments against pricing carbon in Australia is that horrible rhetorical question: how much effect will it have in isolation? Carbon price opponents think they're onto a winner here, and their success (I think) has largely been in framing it as a national rather than a global issue.

In reality, reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a challenge confronting the whole world, collectively. We always knew it was going to be a hard sell, not least because each nation's contribution cannot really do anything by itself. There does need to be some sort of international agreement. Absent international agreement, and absent action from other countries, it's very easy to make the argument that a carbon price will not achieve anything. It won't.

But at this point in the discussion we've already come off the rails, thinking like helpless pessimists, rather than constructive realists. We cannot so easily entertain hypothetical international climate inaction, because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy and leads inevitably to the worst possible outcome. This is similar to the Prisoner's Dilemma. If a nation acts in isolation, it may disadvantage itself economically, but if all nations fail to act for this reason, they will suffer far worst than if they had co-operated. We must focus on international co-operation, not on how to "win" the ensuing chaos if co-operation fails.

It's not beyond us to figure this out. We must think beyond the immediate costs and benefits to our nation. Surely we are human beings before we are Australians. Thus, we must think of ourselves as global citizens, participating in a global debate on climate action and assessing the global costs and benefits thereof. Each investment in renewable energy or reduction in energy use benefits the whole world, not just the country in which it happens. The actual climatic effects of Australia's carbon price will be dispersed over all seven continents and five oceans, while Australians ourselves will experience only a small part of it. Indeed, every country will experience only a small portion of the benefits of their own actions.

This is antithetical to the selfish, nationalist perspective, which would question why others should benefit from our efforts. But that's the only way it can be - climate reality crushing the illusion of absolute national sovereignty. We cannot engineer a climate policy that is only in the national interest. We cannot employ a version of Maxwell's Demon to stand at the border and stop the flow of greenhouse gas molecules back and forth. Climate policy can only serve the global interest, or none at all.

There are many possible analogies. Consider income tax - if each taxpayer were to measure the effect of their own tax contribution on healthcare, education, law enforcement, etc., it would be infinitesimal. Why then should anyone pay tax? Your own tax contribution in isolation hardly benefits society at all. However, there are many people to share the tax burden, and together their contribution is very noticeable. The benefits to everyone of government spending - the opportunity to live in a safe, healthy and educated society - far outweigh whatever personal benefits those few thousand tax dollars were going to have¹.

If we convince ourselves that we matter more than society, or that Australia matters more that the rest of the world, we risk becoming obsessed not simply with helping ourselves, but with actively not helping others. It's not our responsibility, we tell ourselves, forgetting in our stubbornness that we have a stake in it. Selfishness turns into angry defensiveness, which turns into isolationism, and ultimately self-betrayal. Far from being a burden, the greater good is actually in our own personal and national interest. Climate policy is not about altruistically helping others (though that is certainly no bad thing). It is about helping ourselves by helping everyone.

1. Libertarians would insist otherwise, but I don't think they have a great deal of evidence on their side. [↩]

I've gone with a new option being provided by my hosting company.

Though widely ridiculed in medical circles, homeopathy has the backing of a substantial collection of anecdotal science. There is little evidence to suggest it has ever cured anyone, but the principle may instead be applied to other facets of our civilisation - particularly power generation. We already know that large amounts of energy can, in principle, be extracted from the hydrogen in water through nuclear fusion, though that technology is still some decades away.

By contrast, the homeopathic approach to power generation is considerably simpler. You just need a reasonable number of self-contained power generators, two large tanks and one or more large rubber mallets, along with trained monkeys to wield them. The generators are placed inside one tank, turned on and then submerged in water. After submersion, the mallets are used to strike the tank. The resulting pressure waves convey electromagnetic force through the generators and into the surrounding water, diffusing the functions of the generators among water molecules.

Then, the bottom one tenth of the tank is drained through a large valve (large enough to fit a generator) into the second, equally-sized tank. The first tank is emptied (the left-over generators are now fully compostable), and the remaining nine tenths of the second tank is filled with fresh water. The mallets are used once again, and the bottom one tenth of the second tank is drained back into the first.

This process is repeated about 30 times, after which remains water imbued with the electrical-generation capacity of the original generators. This is the process undertaken by some web hosting providers now, to address interest across the web in reducing online reliance on fossil fuels. So far, I can report that Dave's Archives appears to be functioning at its usual level of credibility.

Of course, the trap lies in the initial use of petrol-powered generators, because then your homeopathic generator will need constant top-ups of homeopathic petrol. Fortunately, the same process may be applied to solar photovoltaics, which if diluted homeopathically will produce a tank of photovoltaic water, which you can keep in a large transparent sealed container and place in the sun. (Whichever method is used, the homeopathic generator must immediately be connected to the grid to avoid uncontrolled arcing. Simply dangle your live, high-voltage cables in the water and you're safe.)

This suggests a further, more radical step: converting the oceans to homeopathic photovoltaics. Not only would this essentially solve the world's energy problems for centuries, but the process can be initiated by anyone for relatively little cost. It has not been attempted up until now principally because it would transform the world's beaches into high-voltage risk areas, and virtually eliminate surfing (except on artificial waves). Unfortunately, the surfing lobby has thus far succeeded in stalling all scientific research into homeopathy, leading to its current predicament, being the laughing stock of the medical industry and virtually unknown in power generation. Presumably this cannot last forever, and few would argue that surfing is a necessary sacrifice if we are to secure the future of our planet.

Two curious, abstract figments of the political imagination, contracts and mandates lay the mental groundwork for whatever contrived political debates might lie ahead. In this case, I speak of the unfortunate politics of New South Wales (where I don't live).

On one hand, Barry O'Farrell has signed a "contract" with voters, promising to resign if he breaks his promises (one of which is, of course, a promise to resign if he breaks his promises).

Let us first disavow ourselves of the notion that these "contracts" have any sort of legal basis. By my (perhaps shallow) understanding of contract law, a contract needs the express consent of all parties, not just the implied consent of the majority. There's nothing whatsoever to stop O'Farrell breaking his "contract" or exceeding his "mandate".

I'm not sure exactly who pioneered the idea of an election contract, but certainly David Cameron and Tony Abbott both tried it. Tony Abbott also tried to contract his way out of WorkChoices.

These "contracts" are, of course, really just a way of saying that you're promising something really, really hard. They are apparently designed to create the impression of enforceability, relying on voters not thinking too hard about who, precisely, will be doing the enforcing. They also don't yet have the same history as election "promises", which are broken as a matter of course. "A contract," you therefore say to the electorate, "is just like a promise, only we mean it." The word will be just as tarnished in the end. (This brings to mind the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's multiple attempts to revalue its currency during hyperinflation. The second Dollar is just like the first Dollar, only you can buy things with it. The third Dollar is just like the second Dollar, only you can buy things with it. The fourth Dollar is just like the third Dollar, only you can buy things with it.)

On the other hand, Kristina Keneally has declared that a victorious O'Farrell will have no "mandate":

If the polls today are correct and Mr O'Farrell is slated for victory, it'll be a victory without a mandate, because he's not telling people what it is he will do.

How much Barry O'Farrell has said is beside the point. The people are voting for him, and since democracy operates under the assumption that the people are reasonably well-informed¹, we must assume the people of NSW have taken his policies (or lack thereof) into due consideration.

Even if you accept Keneally's premise, O'Farrell's mandate would be much broader for him not having articulated any policy detail. If you don't tell the voters what you're going to do, and they vote for you anyway, then the assumption is that they trust you to make the right decisions. It's when you tell voters what your policies are - and make "contracts" with them - that your mandate becomes restricted to those stated objectives.

That said, this notion of a "mandate" is rather abstract and, like an election contract, lacks any real legal basis. However, it is useful for evaluating a government's level of honesty. The outgoing government naturally wants the incoming government's mandate to be as narrow as possible, because they're about to spend the next four/eight/twelve years finding ingenious ways of concluding that O'Farrell misled voters. Presumably, though, the incoming government has both the right and obligation to, well, govern, and not simply be a second Opposition.

1. This is, in fact, the entire constitutional basis of freedom of speech in Australia. Nowhere does our hallowed founding document even mention such freedom, but elections require a well-informed public, which implies freedom of speech. [↩]

This is ABC News Breakfast co-host Virginia Trioli, in a recent promo:

I reckon when people wake up in the morning they have one primary concern: is the world safe? Has anything happened drastically overnight that I need to know about and that I need to worry about.

I don't know if this is how 24-hour news reporters justify themselves generally, or if Trioli just happens to know a lot of very stressed, panicky people.

Is "is the world safe" honestly and truly the very first thing that comes to your mind in the morning? Is it even neurologically possible for that to be your one primary concern, before, say, eating breakfast?

Now, I enjoy a good dose of global catastrophe-voyeurism as much as anyone else, but not before something infinitely more important: deciding if and when I need to actually get out of bed and do something productive. I first need to establish this mental framework before I'm capable of entertaining lesser questions of what disasters may have befallen humanity during my state of unconsciousness.

Maybe I'm just in the wrong demographic, and I have nothing against Virginia Trioli, but surely we ought not to be encouraging a culture of panic.