Australian Innovation

What does the word "siege" mean? If you were to ask someone 50 years ago, they might give you an example, the siege of Leningrad - The encirclement of the city by Axis forces, where 3 million people lost their lives as they were cut off from the rest of the world. But today, as recently as 2014, Sydney has had its own siege. If you were to bring someone back from the 1950s, and ask them to guess what happened in the Sydney siege, what would they say? Perhaps China invaded Australia, and encircled the city for months, cutting off supplies. Perhaps it was a civil war? Or maybe a rebellion? A large militant force taking over portions of the city?

Trenches outside Leningrad. - Vsevolod Tarasevich

With the siege of Leningrad, and countless other cities, fresh in their mind, they might laugh, and think you ridiculous, when you finally reveal to them, that it was one man, with a gun, in a cafe.

The word siege has been corrupted. And all it took was the front page of a major news outlet, to trivialise a violent struggle against an army of attackers. To turn a powerful word to dust.

What does the word "queer" mean? Well take that individual from the 1950s and ask them, they might give you a rude response. To them, it is obviously a derogatory term, referring to a homosexual man. But today people openly blog about, talk about, and promote the "queer community." In this case, the word "queer" has also been corrupted, but in a different way, arguably a more positive way, though still by way of trivialisation. It was reclaimed by the community, they wore it like armour, and eventually that is what it became.

Words are fickle things. They come and they go. Shifting, transforming culture as they are transformed by culture. Some more examples which come to mind might be:
Feminist, rape culture, racism, gender, trigger, curvy, patriarchy.
Or, from another perspective:
Fresh, healthy, superfood, natural, organic, free, sale.
Or going into a more obscure realm:
Communism, capitalism, liberalism, nation, state, money, job.

One could argue, and I do, that all these words have been corrupted. And I don't mean the legal definitions, oh no, I mean the *real* definitions, the definitions which exist within the majority of citizens. The definitions which participate in society. Though, these example are testament to the ebbing flow of the lingual and cultural river, a testament to our own evolution, they are relatively harmless.

But there is one word which makes me unbelievably angry. Its slow demise, especially at the hands of Australian politics is gut-wrenching

Innovation has been corrupted.

Here is disgusting fact for you:

We are paying Malcolm Turnbull $522,000 per year to decrease our standard of living, decrease our wages, increase income inequality and raise taxes on the poor. Because as Scott Morrison has said, with regard to wage growth, “You don’t get that from taxing and spending as Labor proposes; you get it from encouraging enterprises to innovate.”

Australians have lost touch with what innovation truly means. The word has been trivialised, incorporated into a political campaign, hung up and bled dry. The same way "jobs and growth" means nothing to the next generation of Australians, "innovation" will soon be a shell word.

Where did we go wrong?

Innovation is about new ideas, new methods and new products. It is common knowledge that any individual in a comfortable position wont innovate, there is no need. And equally so, we know that any individual in a terrible position, such as a wage slave, has no time or energy to innovate. And so using this logic, there is only one group of people we need to encourage. The hungry elite, people who have just enough, but not everything they want.

How could we generate more of these people, create more hungry elite? Should we tax the poor more? Well, that would put some of the hungry elite, people in the lower-middle class, into a terrible position. So no, it would be detrimental, and yet the government has done this. Should we tax the rich less? Well that would put some of the hungry elite, the upper-middle class, into a comfortable position. So no, it would be detrimental, and yet the government has done this. We are throwing money at incubators and accelerators, and yet we are not at all encouraging the development of these types of people.

If this is what innovation looks like. I don't want any of it. - The Guardian

Do we innovate by crippling our university students with even more debt, by deregulating education? No, that would be detrimental, and yet the government plans to.

Do we innovate by deregulating the economic advice and banking sector, allowing large banks to manipulate and snuff any potential startups looking for advice? Or further cripple the economy with shoddy practices. No, that would be detrimental, and yet the government has done this.

Sure there is more money floating around, but money doesn't generate ideas, people do, and Malcolm Turnbull and his party seem adamant in slowly whittling away the prosperity of future generations, making it harder and harder for individuals to innovate.

I will may never be able to afford a house. Innovation is a shell word. Do not be fooled by their advertising. They care very little about you and your future, and very much about their donors. They provide startup funding because they know you'll give it back to them. After all, neo-liberalism has a daughter named nepotism.

Words are fickle things. Some are harmless deviations, existing in micro-cultures, some are powerful components of a propaganda machine, powerful enough to deceive my course co-ordinator, and countless others.

If I hear the word innovation again, I'm going to puke.