A few years ago, I was invited to a talk given by Professor James Allan, author of “Democracy in Decline.” The audience was made up of some of the brightest minds in Western Australia and after they asked a range of questions while I stayed silent, just listening.  Afterwards I joined Professor Allan back at his hotel for lunch and a chat. A few days later I got a message from Prof Allan’s colleague Prof Rick Bigwood, saying James had reported to him he enjoyed our meeting. Yet I felt deflated. I replied with an assessment of the lunch. I wrote: James Allan seemed bored, 'defeated by the broken system'.  James said: "Chris, you can't get obsessed about it" - "you can't beat them -they will gang up on anyone who poses a threat".  I mentioned I grew up in Rotorua New Zealand, taught never to fear a fight.  And so, I outlined my ideas of constructing new legislation from what fiduciary law is attempting to do.  He replied, "Politicians and the system will block it"  I replied, "My idea is sell the idea to political party members to outvote party stalwarts and by making it party policy we force it on them to get it into legislation- a back door reverse takeover"  He agreed the New Zealand Attorney General was wrong saying Separation of Powers prevents an investigation into judicial wrongdoing. He basically agreed on all legal matters… except I couldn't light his imagination re fixing the mess by creating and deploying new fiduciary type legislative rules to control the charlatans and idiots in power. That was a shame.  When I asked him his motive for writing  "Democracy In Decline", his answer wasn't real. I'm guessing because his book was entertainment pointing out decline is from decisions made by hidden undemocratic forces.  Yet in my mind true democracy can't decide policy - Steve Jobs didn't create Apple by asking staff to vote on things to progress Apple. And communism certainly doesn't seek the ordinary man’s approval. I concluded the book James wrote didn't have a plan of attack but instead was a brilliantly written bitch about a broken system…broken because politicians have no loyalty- are riddled with conflicts of interest, which are the very areas fiduciary type reform would target.  I thought James was another academic who agrees our system is broken, yet really doesn't know just how serious that decline is.  History has always repeated…the empire is built… then the empire collapses and is destroyed. We learn from history we don't learn from history.  It's a shame that good brains simply write books that point out the decline of society and that's it!  The problem and no solutions what ‘we the people’ can do about it.  Perhaps in all previous ‘empire declines’, others in James's position, men of knowledge, also pointed out the failings and just whispered the warnings. And they too undoubtedly drew crowds to hear what others also saw but couldn't articulate as well as those like James.  Crowds entertained watching the decline, all holding hands in agreement, comfortable that they didn't die stupid like those others caught up in the collapse.   I didn't get what I was hoping for from James. Perhaps because I was hoping he was serious about fighting to save our democracy instead of observing it. Instead of entertaining people with his knowledge, actually doing what needs to be done…drawing a line in the sand telling people this is where we fight to save civilisation, instead of only observing and reporting its destruction.  It’s so sad all that the influential people want to do is preserve the existing government model. I guess because they have a lot invested in it, even though they know it’s going to kill us. The Empire “Long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. In the morning, it awakes full of ambition, with a courageous heart and sharp teeth, so it can take everything it desires. At noon, it rests on its treasures, at the height of its strength and wisdom, still brave enough to defend what it has acquired. At sunset, its teeth are dull, it forgets its courage, and it squanders its hard-won riches for fleeting moments of pleasure. When night falls, it succumbs to sickness, writhing in agony as it rots alive. But if no predator or scavenger consumes it in the dark, at dawn it rises again, rejuvenated and strong.”

 Moloch is a game theory that exemplifies our participation in a race that could lead to our downfall, yet we continue to play due to the fear of others gaining an advantage that we are unaware of. This is evident not only in politics but also in the endless commercialisation and corporate imperialism that dominate our economy. Although we recognise the need to shift to sustainable and safer energy sources or halt the exploitation of the environment, we hesitate to do so because we fear that other countries such as India, China, and Russia will not follow suit. Our desire to win at all costs has led us to explore dangerous territory such as nuclear armaments, gene editing, particle accelerators, and artificial general intelligence despite being aware of the risks. We are unwilling to stop playing because we fear others will continue and we believe in the idea that we cannot afford to fall behind. This pattern of behavior is a Moloch, where the desire to win outweighs the consequences, even if it leads to self-destruction. There is a theory that suggests the Moloch Barrier may be responsible for preventing most civilisations from advancing beyond a particular stage in their development. It's possible that countless stars, galaxies, planets, and billions of other civilisations have reached our level of progress but were unable to surpass the Moloch Barrier. It's conceivable that nature intended us to participate in this game, to screw ourselves up and that events such as the particle accelerator, operating at precisely the right energy frequency, can trigger the necessary supernova for the ongoing expansion of space, along with the seeds and blueprints of the consciousness we develop. The atoms that make up our being have been many other things before they became part of us. According to scientific observations, when sperm fertilises an egg, it releases a flash of zinc. Maybe this is the moment that this cluster of atoms connects us with the universe we are a part of. Ultimately, energy is never destroyed; it simply reassembles itself after things settle down.