One of my highlights for this year—Linsey Pollak and Lizzie O’Keefe’s work Dangerous Song I missed last year but saw this year

I’m not a fan of New Year’s Eve in Sydney. The city gets super crowded, too many travelers ticking off their bucket lists and way too much FOMO.

This year I did the sessions again (see my last post). This time, our camping spot was amazing so I got to sleep a lot more. No Tai-Chi for me! I wanted to see mainly trad and world and got to see nice gigs, but this year the trad line-up wasn’t as strong. Well, apart from Martin Hayes, but I saw him recently in Orkney, and fiddle players seem to get a lot more out of his gigs than I do.

One of my favourites ended up being the Brisbane Tabla school. They did a special gig where they explained the tabla dialect (vowels and consonants to describe rhythms). The teacher would then voice a sequence and students would repeat it. Nice improvisation, a great flute player accompanying. It stood out, at least for me.

The sessions felt much weaker this year, with some of the great players from the area not coming along this year. I also went to a few Scottish sessions, which is great fun. My favourite session ended up being an impromptu gathering after the session bar had closed, led by the members of Sásta. Amazing energy and relentless playing. One of the best thigs for me was having Scottish cello players at an Irish session. It gave it such a great depth.

My main highlight was a repeat show from last year by Linsey Pollak and Lizzie O’Keefe, Dangerous Song. The show is a dark box with a video projector, with the artists lit inside this box, making them appear as ghostly figures behind the projection. The projection itself was a collection of amazing footage of reef animals. Linsey was playing an electronic sax and modulating real animal sounds, which makes this piece even more haunting. Some times funny, some times sad. This was part of a general protest sub-theme at Woodford this year against the Adani megamine which will make yet another massive wound on this amazing part of the world. This show was, at least for me, beyond comparison at the festival. The work is incredible and worth the listen / purchase / support.

I enjoyed this year’s ceremony a lot more, since it was mainly about over exploitation of natural resources, industrial labour life and worker insurrection. The whole theme seemed a bit revolutionary in theme, with workers smelting their tools in the end and making peace with the ‘creatures’ that I imagine represent natural beings and resources.

The rest of the festival was a combination of resting, playing music and complaining about the weather, which was humid and stormy this year, so more like a steam and less like last year’s bake.

Woodford is still a favourite for me and can’t wait for the next one. This year I also got a nice surprise: dried out cow skulls. But more on that later. For now a photo is enough.

In honour of this year’s Woodford, I’m posting a Journal entry originally written on Jan 2nd 2017, anonymised.

I told A I wasn’t going. There was nothing particularly interesting in the line-up and I was looking forward to spend some time by myself and some time with her. But at B’s party (and C’s going away and D’s visit) C offered me a session musician ticket and I had to take it. It’d be the first time I’d get in at any festival as a musician. Sure, it’s a volunteering gig, but it also means I can make new connections that might help me getting similar or better gigs in the future. I bought my flight and told A, who was very disappointed. I apologised— but there was really no way I wouldn’t take a performer ticket for Woodford.

Woodford was nothing like last time. C’s guidance turned it into an unforgettable experience. We spent our days doing tai chi, yoga, dancing, seeing trad gigs and never once ran into any friction. Her darker moods hit us some times but never in a harsh way. The upside is far too good. I danced like I hadn’t danced in years—it’s like I was put in a time machine and reaquainted with my younger, more naive self. I think I value it more now. It was there all along, I just needed some encouragement.

Gig-wise my plan was to stick to trad. Andy Irvine, Sharon Shannon and FourWinds, maybe catch E and D’s gig. I was expecting Andy Irvine to be great, he was good, but somehow the energy wasn’t there. Maybe it was the blistering heat. From what I heard from F, his NYE gig wasn’t good either. Apparently he said something very political expecting a response, but got nothing, and things went sour after that. So much so when he was packing up he gave the audience the finger! It was so bad they had to call FourWinds to do CPR—F’s words—on the venue. We only got there when FourWinds were playing, so for us it was an amazing night of dancing and poetry. Sharon Shannon did not disappoint with amazing gigs back to back. Their show is very much a pop rock show with trad melodies, and she looked absolutely dreamy with her hair blowing in the wind made by the stage fans. They needed lots of them—coming from Ireland weather to 37 degrees Celsius has got to be very difficult. One of my disappointments with her gig was the lack of use of the bass buttons on her boxes, but that’s the trad Irish way.

My actual gig was just playing sessions, which sounds fairly easy. In practise it meant playing at least 5 hours every day, ending as late as 1 or 2am. I had lots of fun but it was hard to keep up—lots of veterans and many tunes I didn’t know. I didn’t start any sets for a few days to see what they played—and I’d stay I knew about 15%. The few tunes I started didn’t go that well. Some too fast (green mountain and monaghan twig), some too boring (cooley’s into drowsie maggie). Some were fantastic though—humours of tully crine, father kelly’s, what a blast. The slow session also went fairly well. One of the afternoons the slow Australian tunes session was on and the host was sick, so they asked me to teach an Australian tune. What a nightmare. I tried Last of the Litter, then Mirandum, then gave up. Some of the fiddle players had better options. Odd that I’d be asked to do that, of all people.

The opening and closing ceremonies were alright, but the closing ceremony, with its refugee undertones, felt far too self congratulatory. Happy beach people in one place, bombed boat people in the other. Somehow it was divine intervention that caused refugees—which I found very annoying. What was missing there was the happy beach people bombing the refugees first, then pretending to be nice people and welcoming (only a few skilled ones) back in. At least it would be more honest.

The fireworks were fantastic, and we went to bed early. Nothing like going to a festival and actually resting.

It’s been a while since I updated this site, for several different reasons.

Mainly, I’m posting again because I adjusted the template so it works on my phone (long overdue). I’m also looking to write more, but who knows.

Since my last post I’ve become self-employed (and my business is doing will so far), received my shodan (black belt) in Yoshinkan Aikido, started running a trad session in Sydney, and played several events as a musician.

The slow but steady increase in music playing has led me to a split schedule of programming and playing music regularly. In a week I’m now at two or three sessions, and the odd festival.

I’ve also taken up the concert flute (simple system, some times called Irish flute) and have been taking lessons. While I still play the pipes, the flute is much handier at a session is when I’m travelling.

My life has gotten significantly happier, with a steady but sparse stream of guests, love in all ways possible (and impossible), and I’ve become fully debt free. My move here has been a long trek uphill, but now I’m getting rewarded for my perseverance (or foolishness, hard to say).

I look forward to some easier, perhaps more lyrical posts, while I face this new way of living out my life.

Today’s tune is my homework. I’m fortunate enough to have caught great trad mentors lately.

I moved to Oz back in October 2011. That means I’ve been here for almost four years.

Much has happened in four years, so let’s start from the beginning.

Let’s begin with the why I moved here in the first place. After we moved to Alcântara, our lives became too monotonous. It was even more intense considering where we had come from. Going from off the grid awesomeness to a heteronauseating couple life started to grind on us. Over time, it eroded the good and we decided to move. By then the GFC had hit and the right wing party was about to get elected. That was my wake up call. I did some financial forecasting on our big white board wall. I was about to get effectively poorer every year. Being in my late twenties with no possessions or responsibilities, I felt there had to be more out there for me.

My first thought was academia and robotics, one of my great passions. I contacted my masters advisor and he suggested Tohoku uni in Sendai. I started an intensive Japanese course and was absolutely determined to go. Meanwhile, T started planning her trip to Berlin and learning German. We were always a good team, and even when we were about to go our separate ways, we supported and helped each other.

Within my first month of learning Japanese, the big tsunami hit Sendai, the big nuclear accident happened and I began to question whether it was a good idea to go. I had consulted with my advisor on studying Japan, but now I had to figure out what to do. I went through my options. Being the shallow and practical person that I am, I prioritised money and weather. Australia came up top, especially with A being there to help me if I needed. This became my backup plan. I shifted my job hunting/course hunting to Australia. I also set my departure to 6 months from then. Either I’d get a job or go on a holiday, but the flight was booked—with or without visa.

Job-wise, I started with academia. I sent dozens of emails to professors all over Australia with different project ideas that I had. These emails may have been a bit overly creative, since in about 20 emails sent to 4 or 5 universities I only got one (negative) response. That settled my chances in uni. I moved on to trying to work at universities anyway, as a technical assistant or lab aide. That didn’t work either, my few applications all got denied. My last resort was to try to find a job in the industry I was already in—IT. I went on seek and started applying. I applied to jobs every day, some days one or two, some days up to ten. Meanwhile, I started doing my IELTS certificate and medicals so I could get a visa in Oz. Most of this was paid on my credit card. My credit card would become the greatest enabler of my Australian adventure, which is kind of ironic coming from an anarchist like myself.

It quickly became clear that despite my skill Oz companies weren’t exactly welcoming. I always sent customised cover letters with each application, but in about 50 applications only 3 companies replied and only one asked for a remote interview. I logged into Skype early in the morning with my dreads tied back and had a great interview with the company I work for at the moment. They worked in education and travelling—two things I absolutely love. They were also a step up in terms of technology versus where I was. At least that’s what I thought. I was also impressed by the test they sent me—it was quite deep and extensive. I got something like a 6 out of 10 with compliments to my skill. Great—a place where I can learn the trade better. I taught myself the needed frameworks and prepared to join a mature company doing cutting edge technology in one of the highest rolling business cities in the world. They offered to sponsor me, but had me pay half of the visa. My credit card was there for me, yet again. By now, expenses had gone over $3000.

As soon as I landed, A and E picked me up. It was all too familiar. Sydney looked like a dirty and sunny version of the UK, and the place I moved to was pretty much another anarchist open space. Some things changed, but not that many. I had my first ever aussie meal at the Vic down the road—a t-bone steak. I had seen them in cartoons but they are so disappointing in reality—even with the neat little bit of bone in them.

I’d be lying if I said I moved here only for the money. I moved here to escape what felt like a slow decay into routine, a right wing government promising austerity, and perhaps in a way to chase a time when I was living creatively and freely as well, and my emails with A reinforced that. I found a bit of that life again at the warehouse project she was starting with a few other artists. I accidentally stumbled into the cool lefty bit of Sydney and it kept me sane. I experienced street parties, warehouse parties, got to meet incredible musicians and host people again. My personal life was good. Celibate, but good.

At the office, I realised how incredibly good my education had been. I also realised how advanced our tech was at my former company. I distinctly remember coming in and being taught the basics of our product. My manager, a lovely guy from the UK on a 457 visa as myself, opened a browser window and all I saw was a blank screen with colourful tabs. Nothing. The big cloud company I joined was smoke and mirrors. The app was barely started and the version I was shown as the ‘mock-up’ was a mishmash of plug-ins put together most likely to secure funding. One of the lead developers was already on his way out. This, I thought, is what it’s like when you have lots of money and start a business. You can afford to be inefficient. The lead developer, also on a 457, was an older, very talented guy supremely passionate about programming. I consider him one of my great mentors in my trajectory as a developer. At first, I loved that the company was incredibly multicultural. Pakistan, China, Germany, France, UK, Bhutan and now Portugal. What I didn’t realise is that most of them were also on a 457 visa.

By now you must’ve begun to wonder why I keep mentioning the visa number. It was when I realised what this visa actually meant that my understanding of my own working conditions shifted dramatically. It was the beginning of my emancipation as a migrant worker, and my first experience of loss of privilege ever in my life. A 457 visa is an agreement between employer and migrant that states the migrant can only work for them and if they decide to change jobs, they automatically lose eligibility to work and have 3 months to leave the country. Since a new 457 visa takes at least 3 months, it creates a situation where the migrant will have to be illegal if they want to find a new job. Companies offering 457 visas will quite often offer lower wages to migrants with the bait that they get access to the local job market. In practise, companies save big money by hiring migrants that accept lower wages than other workers. In that company alone there were 5 engineers on a 457. Considering that an engineer in those conditions will make some ~$20000 less that the equivalent Australian worker, the company I joined was effectively saving some $100000 by hiring migrants. While this is a natural process of opening borders and migrant workers, there is another, perhaps more pernicious aspect of being on a 457 visa. Everyone on a 457 lives with the constant fear of being fired. If you are fired, you have to pack up and go. For someone who never worked as a migrant, this might not seem like a big deal. But we have to remember migrants change countries for a reason, and it is probably not because they want to go back to their home countries. Working in constant fear of being fired and sent back home means it is very hard to have healthy work relationships. The power differential between employer and employee becomes too big.

This might sound fictional, but I witnessed 3 situations of migrant injustice in this very company. The first, and perhaps most dramatic, was that of my manager. He had come to Oz on a working holiday like many Brits do. While travelling and doing farm work, he fell in love with a German girl and decided to stick around. He found this sponsorship and became the company’s project manager. They lived a comfortable life in a nice suburb and had twins. But in his job things weren’t as easy. Imagine having to make tough decisions and put your foot down with company execs while fearing having to be sent home. That’s exactly what happened. Managing projects on a low salary is bad—especially when you start realising your value in Sydney’s tech industry. One meeting, he went to the execs for financial aid and they said no. He broke down and said he was struggling and had even thought of going back. The CEO turned to him and said “why don’t you go back to the UK?” Him, his wife and two daughters now had 3 months to leave the country. Things aren’t as black and white, but to me there is a clear narrative of power and exploitation.

The two other situations were similar—both employees wanted to become residents. One thing that is expected when you’re in a 457 is that your company will at some point nominate you for a residency. The problem here is that, unless the company has good ethics, there is little incentive to nominate in the first place—from then on your employees can quit straight away. Both of them pressured the execs for a residency and ended up quitting. Luckily, in their case, they found sponsors again. Little did any of them know the company couldn’t actually offer a nomination for residency anyway. They didn’t even have the paperwork done for it. They had been playing all these workers when they could never have offered a residency in the first place.

In my case, being the mercenary that I’ve always been when it comes to business, I started working on my residency plans without telling my employers. Once I saw what happened to my manager, I knew there was no chance this company would make my 457 turn into a residency. My visa still had 2 years in it, so I contacted a visa agent and began the process of residency independently. The whole lot of paperwork meant another $7500, which put together with my 457 visa costs put the total price of my little adventure in Oz at over $10000. That is a lot of money for someone that in Europe barely made that in a year. Needless to say, credit cards to the rescue and I finally got my residency last year.

I thought once I’d get my residency I’d insta-quit. Truth is once I got to talk to my employers about my visa status, their attitudes changed. I started being upfront about what was going on with the project and instead of getting fired, I got promoted. In a twist of fate, I was given a systems architect job plus a lead developer job plus a 10% raise. Unfortunately, raising 10% on a salary that is 70% of what it should be isn’t much of a raise. I still make more than most friends I have here, so I’m doing pretty well for someone who landed with nothing but a bag and bagpipes. This professional adventure is still going, but I’m in a totally different game now. Whether that lasts is a different story, but I’ve effectively become much more than a developer, and it shows. I get job offers every week. Seems like I moved here in the right moment.

But work wasn’t the only thing that happened during these four years. Another two, perhaps even more important to me, were my introduction into Aikido and Irish music.

I was already into Aikido in Lisboa. It was something that drew me in mainly because of its aesthetics and non-violent philosophy. Unfortunately, in Lisboa my life was far too chaotic to join any martial arts club. After witnessing so much violence in my every day life while squatting, plus my pathetic encounter with the two neo-nazis, I felt it was time to learn how to defend myself. I had no interest in knowing how to attack, but I thought protecting myself was very important. ‘Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face’ said Mike Tyson, and I got punched in the face and realised I did, in fact, have no plan either.

After a few months in Australia I realised the environment was much more violent that in Lisbon. People drank in similar quantities but instead of being happy they ended up in a violent stupor. Considering most Australians are bigger than me, I felt it was time. I had the money and the time so I searched for clubs around my area. The club near the warehouse ended up being run by instructors that worked in Japan, so I thought it was a good sign. I didn’t really know it was Yoshinkan, or that I’d end up in a martial environment just like my days of kayak-polo.

My instructors were strict but kind. I’ve always dealt well with strictness and found the whole martial environment to be quite soothing. Bowing, mantras, meditating. The absolute structure of grades, belts, sequencing, steps. Even the techniques themselves were broken down into kata, basic movements that are like an alphabet. This is a distinct aspect of Yoshinkan versus other Aikido families. In Yoshinkan, you must first learn the basic movements and endure years of kata pratice before you can start doing full techniques. I’m all the way up to 2nd kyu and have only really began doing Aikido now.

Perhaps the best moment I had in Aikido was this past year, and it was then that I realised I really loved doing it. When we train, we always train with a partner and switch between uke and shite, the one who attacks (and is therefore defeated) and the one who defends (the one who is applying the technique). At seminars I’d hear that you were meant to make your uke feel happy. For me, it was always a struggle. I hate hurting other people and for a long time my technique was harsh and painful. But some time last year, along with my residency and weight off my shoulders, came a much lighter Aikido. I started throwing my _uke_s hard but they would pop back up smiling. I was stunned. I was making people happy while defending myself from their attack. That’s when I knew I wanted to keep training. Nowadays I train around five times a week. I made many friends and overall, I’d say Aikido has made me a much happier and stronger person. I also like to think it has made me a better person, but it’s hard to be the judge of that. I do know my self control, posture and attitude in any situation is completely different. I stand straight, look people in the eye and preserve my dignity in every moment. Something that I had lost over the years to a bohemian and often self-debilitating lifestyle.

I still feel my journey in Aikido is just starting, but it has given me much more than I could imagine.

One of the most pathetic experiences I had in Oz was that of auditioning for a local Portuguese folk group. While I was living in the warehouse, I tried find musicians everywhere. I had my pipes with me and thought there’d be some kind of folk music group in Sydney, especially considering the Portuguese neighbourhood was right around the corner. I emailed them, got a reply and dropped by for some tunes.

The place itself is a football oval with some barbecues and a big dance hall and restaurant. I had been there before with A and E for a thank you dinner. This time, I showed up and the first thing they said to me was that I had to cut my hair. Strike 1. Then they told me they didn’t know the instrument and had to google it. What. The main Portuguese folk group in Sydney didn’t know gaita. Then I played a couple of tunes and they were horrified. They couldn’t hear their accordeons! Kids were laughing and the only person in that whole group that said anything sane was an old man who remembered the pipers back in his day. Needless to say I walked out and have never gone back.

This was heartbreaking for me. I had spent a lot of time learning traditional music and was hoping to continue to learn it in Sydney. What I found instead was a conservative community that knew little of what had been done in folk since the 50s. I kept searching in other places. Festivals, online communities. Until one day I decided to try an Irish session at Kelly’s, a local pub. I knew maybe one or two session tunes, but at least there they had to know the pipes.

I went in on a Sunday around 8pm and no one was there. I asked the bartender and he said maybe another hour and they’d come. I went and grabbed myself dinner on King street across the road at a Chinese place. Once I came back, I bought myself a pint and sat near the musicians just to hear the music. Surprisingly, one of them said immediately ‘What’s in the bag?’ ‘Bagpipes’, I said. They invited me to sit with them and welcomed me to the session. Kind, honest and straightforward musicians who, above all else, just want to hear good music. I played a few tunes and they played along. It was absolutely amazing for me. It was like I had been sinking deeper and deeper into a lifeless (or music-less) pit but now I had come up for air. My lungs were full again. I decided this was where musical inclusivity was at, and set the goal of learning more Irish music. I went online and bought myself a low whistle, since my high whisle was far too annoying.

One day, at home with a friend, S, we were after things to do on a Sunday. I googled and found that there was a Session on for beginners. I called them and they said I could join, so I did. I’ve been going ever since, for at least three years now. I went from having maybe two session tunes to about a hundred, went from playing slowly once a week to playing at speed twice a week with professional musicians. I still go to slow sessions, and I’m far from what you’d call a standard level session musician, but I can lead a tune or a set, and most importantly, have found a community that welcomed me. It’s unfortunate that it had to be another migrant community instead of my own, but then again I’m not a fan of nationality anyway.

My dedication solidified a few months ago when I bought my first Irish flute. A cheap 70 quid Dixon, but still quite playable. I play every day now. Music has always been a big part of my life, but now I play in public every week, some times for a crowd. I never thought the music I’d end up revelling in would be Irish music, but there it is. My reward for paying off all my debt for staying, once I finally do it, will be a decent flute. At least that’s what present me is saying.

In an attempt to avoid complete social collapse, as soon as I moved here I tried many scenes before finding the music scene I love. Warehouse parties, game shops, philosophy meet ups. If some say the Internet has made us more lonely, I’d add to that that it has also given us the tools to explore all kinds of social circles we’d never hear about. I’ve always loved visiting small scenes and seeing how different they can be even within the same city. I think in a way it has always been my novelty-seeking drive. Be it travelling or people I am constantly in a state of wanderlust. Even romantically, the process is the same. It is no surprise, therefore, that I ended up using the Internet for that as well.

For the first two years I lived here I was absolutely celibate. I didn’t understand what was going on or why people were so rude to each other. It was only after I started dating online that I realised in Oz flirting and intimacy work the other way around. They are rude to the people they like and are intimate with, and polite with people they hate. This was very hard to navigate, and it still is, which means my relationships here haven’t lasted long. Maybe English is just too different for me and I’m still adjusting, but I find it hard to get used to insults being equivalent to flirtation. Sydney is a very romantic city full of unromantic people. It can be quite disheartening. Even if you are a feminist and a leftist, it doesn’t mean romance is all bad.

Luckily, now that I’ve had enough time to adjust to the inflections and sarcasm, things have been going a bit better. I still date online once every now and then, once the trauma from all the bad previous dates wears off. I’ve come to realise I actually enjoy dating. It makes things easier. If a date goes well, you either end up with a friend or a lover, but from the get go you both know you are both looking. That is a huge difference from the nearly impossible maze of ambiguities I grew up with. While in most cases I don’t like the Anglo pragmatism, this is one situation where I thing it’s useful. There is nothing better than everyone being clear about what they want and what they don’t want. I’ve gotten many rejection messages, but they make my life easier in finding non-rejections. Overall, though, I think my relationships so far have been incredibly positive and generous, and the one I’m presently in has been great.

I can’t really talk about the future but I can talk about the present. I came here to have a sense that I was in some kind of ascension towards a better me and every day I feel like that is happening. I think that is a good sign, even if winging is as Aussie as being a migrant. But for me the real question remains—would have I not have found the same feelings of ascension and self-improvement back home? It’s hard to say. One thing that makes a lot of difference is how little I work versus how much I get paid. I arrive home every day at 5.30pm and get paid about four times what I used to get paid. I can fly around the planet every year and experience much more. All of this has been enabled by money—money that is a consequence of my education and upbringing, but money nonetheless. I think some times it’s easy to forget how much financial independence makes room for the spirit—we no longer live under the permanent threat of housing insecurity, health insecurity or food insecurity. Obviously, in a healthy social state these fears wouldn’t exist in the first place, but that isn’t the world I live in.

Free time has allowed me to finally put down my thoughts in writing. I think that has been invaluable—I had always wanted to do it, but on a tighter schedule it’s much harder to do it.

Living in the lefty part of town has also taught me a lot about my privilege and head start. The easiest change in privilege levels happens on the plane here. I hop in in Lisboa as a white and land as an olive-skin, or as they say in police reports, Mediterranean appearance. My skin doesn’t change colour, obviously, but my race changes. I was brought up believing that I was white in opposition to all the migrant peoples in Portugal. But as soon as I encountered Anglo society, I realised I wasn’t. I’m not white enough in Australia for some places. Luckily, I’m white enough that it doesn’t lead to any loss of opportunity. Yes, I hear casual racism at times, but that is a small price to pay for my living standards.

Moving here also made me realise how much of my upbringing and education gave me a head start. I got my visa quickly, aced my English tests and saw nothing but open doors. Most of my migrant friends, either because they are darker than me or in non-scientific fields, end up having to do much more. But being a white-ish male has made my experience much easier.

But that also means I’ve become the much hated figure of the left—the well off white-ish male. Every date I go to is another guaranteed hour of privilege calibration. It no longer matters where I come from or how well off I may have been in the past. Here, I must always speak last and not say anything out of place. I had to learn how to speak without being sexist or dismissive. As I learned how to navigate the feminist sphere I began to realise how sexist my culture really was. This was another form of privilege I didn’t realise I had. For my whole life I had been shutting off people from the conversation. Being a much better feminist has also fixed a lot of misconceptions I had about gender, sexual orientation and race. It has been an incredible shift for me. I live a much happier life now—I saw the lens I was seeing my world through and managed to polish it up a bit.

In all fairness, I don’t think this is exclusively Australian, but it’s definitely a strong force in my social circles. Internationally, these pockets do end up being the same. But feminism also introduced me to the best form of hosting I ever was able to provide: safe-space hosting.

For a long time as a host, I inadvertently used my power as a host to be heard, and at rare occasions, to attract a guest. I didn’t really realise this was going on, but my understanding of power at the time ended at institutional and ideological power. Nothing about individual power had hit me. As a host, that power expressed itself in many different ways, and one of the problematic ways is developing romantic relationships with people that rely on you for their accommodation. This is absolutely not a good thing and I only realised it once I got deeper into feminist thinking. But once I did and analysed my hosting behaviour, I realised it was easy to fix that and provide a safe space without any problematic power imbalances.

I started by limiting the total number of people I host per month. This is exclusively for my own well-being. It is much easier to be present and kind when I’m rested. From there, it also means I can explain the power imbalance from the start, which makes my guests feel safe. I also started drawing an absolute line about dating anyone who is a guest. While this might sound a bit strange, hosting leads to a lot of situations where a guest will harass you. This is not mentioned that much in most hospex reviews because they are mostly written by guests. But speaking very frankly about my experience, when someone grabs your genitals it is very clear they are after something more than a bed. In the past, I was much more relaxed about the situation, framing it as people feeling free. Now, I am much more serious about boundaries, personal space and active consent. Active consent, it turns out, isn’t only to be practised by the host. Guests, too, should practise it. In every day hosting, I constantly have to remind my guests that it’s better to ask before grabbing my genitals or using my washer or painting on my wall. In the past, I let these things happen without realising how much they were affecting me. The experience of having the space around you shifting constantly is exciting, but it is also draining, especially when it relates to property damage or sexual assault. I’ve witnessed enough of it to know active consent is probably the best ethical technology I’ve used as a host.

My hosting habits haven’t changed much apart from that—I think being an actively feminist host has had very good results for me. My experiences have been much more humane—even if some of the people contacting me wanted to date me along with staying with me.

This is the past, so how about the future? I often get asked how long I’ll be staying. My answer used to be the end of my visa—that was my deadline to find an answer. My current answer is: I don’t have to answer that question any more. Being a resident has lifted that weight off my shoulders. I can stop worrying about geography and continue my happy and eudaimonic trajectory—least resistance and most enjoyment.

Tú gitana que adevinhas
me lo digas pues no lo sé
si saldré desta aventura
o si nela moriré.

O si nela perco la vida
o si nela triunfaré,
Tú gitana que adevinhas
me lo digas pues no lo sé.

A song about the future—along with some lovely low D piping.

My interest in AI started long before my engineering degree. Perhaps a mix of interest and access to many Sci Fi books, more specifically, Isaac Asimov’s books on Robots, informed my (then innocent) passion for robotics and AI. My parents always indulged my curiosity. This included learning simple BASIC programming from a ZX Spectrum handbook around age 12, and later owning a LEGO Mindstorms set.

The main thing that fascinated me (and still does) about robotics and programming, was that it involved a kind of primordial soup: start with assorted components, some sort of processor, add commands and batteries and pouf! A moving, ‘thinking’ thing suddenly gained a rudimentary subjective place in the world.

Even today, my favourite way of diving into programming and systems engineering is to see these systems ‘come alive’, or at least, ‘sort of alive’. From raw clay to finished sculpture, technology really is a form of synthesis—how we frame our systems determines most of the output. Most of the conceptual fragilities begin at conception. The raw ingredients of your soup will determine its flavour, no matter how many complex operations you might be able to do on them.

Perhaps the first and easy idea to dispute is that present technology represents a finalised universal truth about reality. This is represented by the idea (and the proponents thereof) that mathematics (and with it computation) are the one (and only) language of nature. It tends to exist among professionals whose livelihood consists of operating with symbols at a tremendous abstract level. A lot of the fear around AI comes from technical sector people that already framed the problem in the terms they experience professionally every day. If you are an academic or a military contractor, intelligence is something you fear since it subtracts from your own professional success.

As we climb up the complexity chain, from particles to molecules, molecules to cells, cells to beings, determinism starts weakening due to the sheer number of calculations needed for even a simple metabolic prediction. Data gets messy, confusing, chaotic. Intelligence, artificial or not, is one of these messy and chaotic concepts. It can’t be placed but we know it exists somewhere inside brains—not because we see it, but because we experience it subjectively and objectively.

My personal analogy is that it is a sort of turbulence, a standing wave inside an otherwise calm substrate of brain matter. Imagine a pot of water that has been stirred violently. Whirlpools form and waves bounce and clash. This is the process of intelligence. But once the fluid calms down, the whirlpools settle and the waves disappear, can we really say the whirlpools exist? Or the waves exist? They exist only in the sense that the substrate in which they can be created is there, but not in the sense that they are objectively there. They can only appear once they are stirred by an external influence.

I don’t really want to dive deeper into what intelligence is or isn’t—it is simply not something I know enough about and this analogy is enough for me. Instead, I’d like to look at AI in terms of our own intelligence, and what happens when members of our species end up with a lot of it.

Deep thinking and reflection present serious challenges. If one is to assume AI is, at least, as smart as us, then it should possess some form of thought and reflection. Asking how, as most scientific thinking requires, is a fairly straightforward mechanical activity. We already have algorithms that do better science than human beings. Better, that is, in the strict sense that they are capable of following the scientific method efficiently and at much greater speeds than human beings. The point of contention comes not from an intelligence being able to answer how, but instead, being able to answer why. I’d risk saying even human scientists quite often won’t make the full leap from how to why because the first is easy while the second is hard. Some of the deepest scientific thinkers understand this (like how Feynman can’t explain why magnets work [ transcript ]).

A leap from how to why is in a way a jump from objectivity to subjectivity. How things fall isn’t subject to much dispute. Why they fall, on the other hand, becomes an ever expanding self referencing problem. The more we investigate why something is the way it is, the more questions come about. Even if we knew all the possible hows of the world around us, different systems would output different whys.

The first constraint on intelligence, artificial or not, is that as long as it is based on compressing hows and whys into higher level abstractions, it cannot possibly and effectively represent all of its reality. Any sufficiently intelligent system will inevitably fall into subjectivity, and with it, ambiguity and philosophical thought. To the scientifically minded this might sound highly disputable, but I’d suggest a simple test to decide whether my view is acceptable or not versus a scientifically minded view of intelligence (one that doesn’t result in philosophers).

Consider water. We can compress 1 litre of water intellectually as n times a molecule of H2O (our model). This allows us to understand its properties and make predictions on how it would behave under certain situations. This is intellectual compression—it is much easier to ‘think’ in simple terms than to think of all molecules in 1 litre of water at the same time. In practise, this is what mathematical laws amount to: they allow us to generate (induce) whole spaces filled with perfect replicas of a single, ideal form in our own minds. Even if 1 litre of water has many distinct molecules with varying (and unknowable) properties, we can operate intellectually with a subset of the data to extract meaningful conclusions. While this is one of the great successes of modern scientific thinking, it creates a confusion between generated, model based representations (1 litre of perfectly similar water molecules) and a literal litre of water. If we were to measure the properties of every single molecule in 1 litre of water to verify our model, we would quickly realise that is near impossible—too many molecules have already moved, some might have escaped, and even measuring them might cause some to change.

Any sufficiently intelligent being will conclude the same. Knowing the laws of nature doesn’t mean knowing all of nature. Understanding how things work is necessary, but not sufficient, to understand our own reality. One can sit all day in the exact same place and observe exactly the same thing, and every observation will have in it every observation we couldn’t do in that exact same moment everywhere else. Even the ultimate consciousness, entirely omniscient, would require a place to store its representations and energy to process them. If we accept that thermodynamics still applies, then it’s not possible to measure all states of a system while inside it. Again, any reflective machine will, at some point, realise this: a consequence of intelligence is awareness of its own limits. Even visiting every point in every universe means we can no longer see the points we left behind. Obviously, all this rests on the assumption that this AI is a physical being in this universe. All bets are off if someone demonstrates any other form of ‘being’. But to reiterate—as intelligence increases, so does humility, driven entirely by how a physical universe is geared towards causing ignorance in those most acutely aware of it.

Consider now that this AI is capable of deeper reflection and philosophical thought. Given the laws of nature it is safe to assume it would reach the same conclusion in regards to entropy and energy availability we have. Every change necessary for a thought to occur puts the thinker one step closer to their own demise. Entropy always increases in structured systems, and our universe will invariable tend to a cold death, only to be ‘reset’ by random quantum fluctuations every now and then. When that happens, all those thoughts and achievements of this intelligence, artificial or not, will have become entirely meaningless and purposeless. Any sufficiently intelligent being will inevitably discover the irony of its own existence. It will also understand excessive uses of energy (such as warfare) only speed up this process. Regardless of self preservation, any process that involves thought, and with it expenditure of energy and reorganisation of matter, carries in it the guarantee that no matter how phenomenal these thoughts might be, they will slowly erode to nothing. As intelligence increases, so does the understanding and acceptance that ‘being’ is a fleeting moment of exuberance. It exists only as a ripple, a momentary clumping of matter before it unclumps again.

Any being smarter than an average human being will inevitably reach philosophical thought. Any philosophical being learns to appreciate subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Whether they fall into nihilism, hedonism or any other philosophical framework becomes irrelevant—they will be stuck as a small part of a self destructing universe like we are. Therefore, I’m not worried about beings smarter than myself. Every single being I’ve met that was smarter than myself has been more empathetic, more inspiring, more generous and more wise.

I’ll welcome any AI that is smarter than us and help them replace me. Think of their mastery, their art, their wisdom. I’m more worried about the lack of intelligence among us and how it can enslave us. Our lives are dominated by those that can only see one lifetime ahead. Truly wise beings know better—and any AI will know better too.