>What we should also not do is treat people as experts just because they say they are. Agreed 100%. Experts should make decisions based on open data that anybo

>What we should also not do is treat people as experts just because they say they are. Agreed 100%. Experts should make decisions based on open data that anybody can review. Also there are a lot of grey areas, so often we look for "scientific consensus" where a community of experts can debate issues and attempt to decide whats best. The rest of your comment is basically that government does a bad job at a lot of things, but my view is we should fix government rather than reject it. I live in a much smaller country, and here, I feel a small group of individuals _can_ make enough noise to shape policy. Sort of. At least they have a say. A good corruption watchdog would help - we don't have it yet, but at least there is talk of one. No climate policy. The whole witness K thing. Massive expansion of Defense this week. Cuts to the ABC. Err, dark times for Australian politics, but it _could_ be all rolled back at the next election. It will be a close race. I'm rambling now.