More (another) conspiracy

As you know, this particular journal of history is not afraid to call it when necessary, and, gentle readers, it is again necessary: CONSPIRACY (and not a Hildebrandt to be seen).

This time the sinister tentacles reach to the highest level: the West Australian state government. OK, as highest levels go, the WASG is a bit of a non-event, but here goes anyways.

The West Australian government department in charge of telescopes gave a talk at my boy's school. It was tremendously exciting and now many of the area's five and six year olds know how many moons Saturn has. But that's not all. In the course of this talk the boffin at the mic stated that it was necessary - again, 'necessary' - that 'we'** land manned flights on Mars by 2030 and begin mining certain valuable minerals thereon because deposits of said minerals on Earth will have run out by that date.

Now, staff at the West Australian government department in charge of telescopes are officially the last government employees to be updated on any issue you care to name. If they know WA's minerals are gone in twenty years so does the gov itself. And they've kept mum. For yer foreign brains, WA's economy is in boomtimes, based entirely on (a) our cleverness in having settled a land that has stuff in the ground that makes the world's mobile phones work; (b) the fact we thieved said ground off the blackfellas, without so much as a 'excuse me'; and (c) our unsurpassed ability to dig holes (of which i have written previously).

Now, the boomtimes have an endtime.

The cheap, rapidly erected pre-fabricated concrete apartment blocks, the jet-skis, the inordinate numbers of Pajeros, the oversized Ferris wheels, the freeway extension and, dammit, the very big holes in the ground: these are all things we have grown used to pointing at excitedly and saying 'we did that.'

The historically-minded among you will know that European settlement in WA has known two decisive eras: the 1830s to the 1890s, when the lack of what we now call venture capital stymied the dynamic, adventurous, entrepreneurial colonists, when there were plenty of good ideas but no money to implement them; and the 1960s until now, when there's been nothing but stupid ideas but all the money in the world to make them happen.

And now? We have twenty years left. But don't tell anyone.

** By 'we' i suspect he meant not the employees of the West Australian government department in charge of telescopes nor even West Australians in general, but the worldwide brotherhood of Boffins, Inc. (that's a mixed metaphor but this is too important to get hung up on trivial details).