It's obvious

Pirates – I was reading an article in the Economist recently which made the case (backed up convincingly with data) that for pirates to flourish they need some base level of governance – anarchy in fact does not suit them. Under anarchy they are liable to have their booty pinched (ooer) and there is no ready market, no network of sales people (however dodgy) to fence their ill-gotten gains to. Even the pirates du jour, Somali pirates, are mostly based in Puntland which apparently is the nice part of Somalia – sort of the Somali Edgbaston or Chorlton, whilst all around is collapse and calamity (I understand it's rough around Puntland too). There are no, or few, pirates in places like Haiti or Liberia because things are too far gone. So, it turns out, taking somewhere like Haiti and making some improvements to the basic rule of law may lead to more pirates in the short to medium term.

This is by way of introducing a topic which is interesting to me – the counter-intuitive or “anti-common-sense”. In other words: “anyone with common sense can see that we live on a flat Earth from which we see the Sun whizzing round us”. Sometimes put “everything you think you know is wrong”. Probably.

I have a wariness toward common sense. I particularly dread the phrase in the mouth of a politician. Anyone who tells me something is “obvious” or “stands to reason” had better be able to back that up with summat a bit more pithy.

I am reminded of an earnest climate-change activist on some breakfast telly thing one time, clearly a bloody nice bloke, but perhaps not the brightest energy-saving bulb in the pack. He was lamenting the carbon emissions involved in carting something or other exotic from Thailand to supermarket shelves in Britain. Fair enough. But his answer was to grow the stuff in this country, under glass. When it was pointed out to him that it could be proved that there was in fact less emissions involved in transporting the stuff than in heating and fertilising for months on end you could practically smell the cognitive dissonance coming off him... all he had was “it's obviously crazy to fly this stuff all around the world”. Well it might be but not if your alternative is demonstrably worse.

OK – not the best example I suppose, I'm sure many people would have spotted that coming but (also I think in the Economist) there has been an analysis of the comparative emissions involved in trucking fresh produce the length and breadth of UK (in modern, well-maintained, huge lorries in a highly-efficient manner) versus thousands and thousands of more or less well-maintained family cars (many of them I'm sure fluffy Volvos and Saabs etc but still) doing short trips to the local farmer's market to pick up an organic cabbage once or twice a week. That claimed quite convincingly that the former was the better for the planet. And don't get me started on organic versus high-intensity agriculture....I mean “obviously” organic is so much better but if you think we're going to feed the world on organic produce then we'd better get cutting the last of the rainforests down pronto because we're going to need every scrap of land we can get our hands on (and it won't be enough, most likely).

I realise I might be coming across as a closet climate change denier here so let me say now that I'm highly in favour of renewable energy vs. oil and coal, in favour of fewer car journeys, basically in favour of not screwing with the environment any more than we have to by pumping all sorts of crap into the atmosphere, but at the same time I recognise how incredibly, mind-bogglingly complex the problem space is. No one understands it and it can be dangerous to meddle, however good the intention. It's highly possible that we're going to end up breaking something by fixing it.

If you doubt that then think about the world financial system. No amount of money, effort, brainpower and political hot air has been spared on modelling and understanding that system over the long-term and where are we? Barely 3 years after 2008, that's where. So if we assume (I mean it's obvious, innit??) that the global climate and weather systems are at least as complex as the financial ones – why should we believe we really know what's going on?

I mean, besides me. Going on. That is.

Scared now

Consider that what our brains make from that which our eyes and ears and other sense organs report is in large part illusory, based on simplistic models and patched over with assumption and supposition.

And consider that for how much actual stuff is in an atom it's being charitable to say that it even exists. And then consider that because of the electromagnetic force what little of it is actually there can never touch another atom in anything like normal, human-friendly conditions. You can't actually touch anything.

Then given all this, in a very real sense, we live forever separate in a world which is hardly there at all, and which we mostly make up from some barely-glimpsed shadows on a frosted window.

So reading someone's blog is one of the more intimate things we can do. My thoughts are mingling with your thoughts right now. And my thoughts are all sweaty.

Jubilee Jubbly

What the crap is WRONG with people who use the Jubilee Line every day?? Whatever they're doing, whatever money they're making...it's not worth it. Quarter past seven in the morning and I thought I'd beat the rush. If it wasn't for the fact that the lady standing behind my left shoulder seemed to be going out of her way to squash her boob into my arm the whole way the trip would have been unbearable. 

Canary Wharf is a nice place to visit but they need to move it the other side of London. I realise it would mean a lot of work but I'd really appreciate it. My usual commute these days is a half-hour walk, most of that along the river, and I guess there must be a figure for which I'd swap that for the Jubilee Line but I can't think what it might be right now. And I shudder to think what I'd have to do to earn it...

Gets my vote

So, in the end, I didn't vote. I couldn't get sufficiently worked up about either AV or FPTP to wish to either keep one or move to the other. I remember reading an in-depth article in the New Scientist some time ago which analysed a number of different democratic voting systems (including these two) and came to the conclusion that none of them were without their flaws and peculiarities. Not least of course is that, chances are, you'll get the usual shower of shite in power whatever you do.

The campaigning from both sides lived well down to expectations too, which didn't encourage me to make any special effort.

What I think would be a winner is some kind of “golden ticket” arrangement whereby at every election one lucky voter would get to choose a candidate to be shot in the face and dumped at sea. Now tell me you'd pass that chance up.

The world has been waiting for my take on this Osama Bin Laden thing....I expect

As I write the situation is “fluid” as they say. Gone from a cowardly terrorist shooting from the cover of his wife's-soon-to-be-shot body whilst being filmed in glorious technicolour to an unarmed man being shot whilst putting up unspecified “resistance” (and there was no live streaming straight to the Whitehouse after all...was there a recording?).

The American politicians, spooks and PR-types are doing their best to take the shine off this (to them) good news story it seems.

Anyway at least we'll get to see the picture evidence soon.....oh wait, no we won't. Beginning to look like “burying his body at sea” might have been a mistake too – maybe better in the long run to put up with a few crazies laying flowers on his grave (hey, at least Homeland Security could keep tabs on them) than enabling the conspiracy theorists (“it wasn't him”, “he got away and is living in Zardari's basement”, “they still have the body – stuffed and mounted in the Pentagon...”).

Ah well, it was always going to be messy. It will be interesting (actually, probably depressing) to see what the net effect of this will be – will his killing lead to more deaths and violence than if he was allowed to quietly go the way of Lord Lucan and Shergar?