gamboling.co.uk

One of the greatest advances in technology is texting on mobile phones. I have, in the past, spoken about how such a thing came about (which is a great story too so please check it out). But the best thing about texting is that it has normalised the deaf in a way that nobody planned. It has made it possible to do so many things that previously they only dreamed of.

And then I saw this video and I can’t believe it, what a great thing. Kerrang have an hour of signed video for the deaf. If this is anything to go by then it must be genius must watch telly:

There’s a guy on the train most mornings who is really annoying. Why is he so annoying well he starts off by being one of those people who views being on a train as the ideal time to continue his social life. That’s right he’s a social caller.

In case you aren’t sure about the definitions you have four different kinds of people on trains (in relation to telephone use).

Perfect Saint – Mobile phone is off and stays off for entire journey.

They called us, don’t blame me – They receive a call on the phone. They look suitably embarrassed, explain the situation or answer the question quickly and hang up. If a conversation of more than one minute ensues then this person has become a social caller.

I just called, to say, I’m on the train – sometimes you do just need to initiate a call on a train. Normally to let the person at the other end know that the train has finally left the station and seems to have some intention of finally getting you home. This should be less and less necessary because you could always text. But we do know that texts can, on occasion be as delayed as the trains. So yes, it can be acceptable. But if the conversation strays off of the unavoidable reason for your call then you’re into social caller.

Social Caller – Oh dear, you stupid pitiful scum of the earth. You’re on the train, you’re bored. You’ve forgotten to bring a book or magazine and despite having a phone which you could play a game (with the sound off please) or write an e-mail (or for that matter blog post criticising your fellow passengers) you decide that it would be a good use of your time to catch up with your friends by giving them a call. This is just simply not fair. Us poor saps are sitting here while you yammer on about what’s going on this weekend, what’s happening with your boyfriend or on one memorable occasion as you wonder if the fact you’d missed your period means anything! And it goes on and on. And sometimes the person on the other end has better things to do or dies and the conversation ends. We on the train think, for one blissful moment that the pain has gone away. But there you are scrolling through your speed dial looking for your next victim. And it all just gets worse and worse.

So, now we have the definitions sorted lets get back to my social caller. Well the first thing to note is that it’s in the morning. The used to be a rule, a social code, that although nobody liked mobile phones on trains at any time on morning commuter you don’t talk to somebody even if there on the train right with you. Silence is the order of the day. But there’s no stopping this guy. Second this guys got a shrill camp voice and ends every sentence with a raised voice like it’s a question. Even when it’s not. And finally he’s depressed. So he just talks interminably about why everything is wrong in his life since he was dumped, and how he just doesn’t seem to have any energy any more. The worst is when he’s dials and then we all wait to see if the next person is going to pick up. He says, “pick up, pick up, pick up” as it rings. And then when nobody answers he says, “why don’t they ever answer”. Perhaps it’s because it’s seven fifteen and they’re asleep or they have decided that the very last thing that they want to wake up to is your depressed whiny voice droning on and on until the end of the world. Or perhaps they hate you. This is what I shout at him – in my mind.

The other day while walking to work I noticed a kid who was wearing a tracksuit and a beanie suddenly crouch down next to a wall. He was right next to it so I couldn’t see what he was doing and this piqued my interest. I looked again, this time for longer, and could see his hands moving around on the wall.

In to my mind popped the thought, “little bugger is spray painting that wall”. Just as I was thinking this another boy came walking along the side street wearing a very similar get up. As the second kid turned the corner onto the main road the first kid jumped up and sacred the living daylights out of the other. This had been, of course, the entire reason for hiding behind the wall. They quickly laughed and clapped each other on the back and went running up the hill.

Sometimes innocent acts look deeply suspicious. And I wonder if it’s London or the media that’s made me consider such simple fun between two children a less likely prospect than graffiti? Who knows? Maybe it’s simply the fact that there’s much more graffiti on my journey in to work these days?

My interest was piqued by Nick’s comment the other day which suggested rather intriguingly that people were creating a new conscience for themselves. Which to an extent implies that the old one wasn’t created by ourselves. But I digress.

The main thing about a social conscience is that it doesn’t exist. Or rather it is as slippery as a well oiled eel. Think of this, one of my favorite thought experiments.

Which is more important to you, a human life or a DVD?

The honest answer is almost certainly not the old testament version of morals that suggests that a human life is more valuable than all else. In reality we know that we might all happily buy a DVD for about fifteen pounds. And fifteen pounds can save a life in Africa. The simple logic of this shows us that while we might try and deny it, our moral compass doesn’t run as smoothly as we think.

The biggest mistake that economics ever made was trying to apply a model of rationality to the world. Humans simply aren’t rational they are actually rationalising. We as a group are very good at lying before the act, we will all suggest right up until we buy that DVD that we obviously care more about human life than DVDs and then we buy the DVD and rationalise the decision.

The question then is how is this different to murder? I’m not going to argue that you are murdering someone each time you buy a DVD that wouldn’t be right, it’s clearly manslaughter. But rather in the case of murder everyone agrees usually that killing somebody is wrong. Except actually we don’t feel that all of the time. In America you are allowed to kill people if they killed somebody first. But we also allow it in the UK because our army is allowed to go and kill people too. Obviously this uses a similar argument of self defence. And although I won’t disagree with you if you tell me that some wars are morally justified then hopefully you will see as I do the rationalisation that’s going on.

When we were looking at free will before, I threw in the example of us letting criminals off from murdering people because they plead insanity. The moral compass is especially confused here. We are saying that murder is bad, we have decided it is immoral. But we decided what is and isn’t moral ourselves. The murderers clearly thought it was justified morally. That the person deserved it. The only real thing that makes murder immoral is that there are more people who are not murderers than people who are. Sure there are lots of potential murderers, but murderers are against murder in general too, just not the one that they did – that one was justified – in their mind. But if we are able to make murder immoral because murderers are in the minority, surely that is also how we decide who is insane? They are people who do not act like the norm. The point being surely, if you decide to murder somebody surely you were insane anyway? So how can you plead insanity? Perhaps it is just our moral swirl sorting things out for us? I mean it works quite well really. It’s the ones who don’t think it was odd that they murdered somebody who we want to lock up – but can we say that that is moral?

Nick’s original point was about the environment. So I guess my point is this, while everyone thinks they like the environment, and says that they care about it (well not everyone but everyone who does) and they may even recycle, the biggest problem is that they just can’t stop themselves from consuming in the first place. We think we have a conscience, we think we have morals, but the actual morals we have are often very different than the morals we think we have.

A friend of mine was telling me the other day about his father who had had a massive heart attack but had driven himself to hospital because he had known that where he was he would have been taken to hospital in Lancashire and he “wasn’t going to bloody die there” so he drove himself to a hospital back in Yorkshire.

While he was relating the story, a woman friend of mine piped up suggesting that she thought that this was odd because normally men exaggerated their health issues. Suggesting that the concept of man ‘flu proved her point.

For those not in the know, man ‘flu is the idea that even if you get the slightest sniffle then you are suddenly having the worst possible illness that anyone has ever had in their lives.

The thing is that there does seem to be some confusion between the ‘flu thing and the whole heart attack story, and how men will often times completely deny the true pain that they are in just to save themselves from embarrassment. So which are we men or mice?

The truth seems to be mice. Men will happily inconvenience their spouse or partner by having the worst ever symptoms ever up until the exact moment that their partner suggests that they go to the doctor. The powerful urge not to inconvenience others in the British Male will mean that men will lie about the really bad things saying they don’t exist just so people don’t feel that they have to bother too much.

I know a guy who was so polite in this way that when the doctor asked him if his arm hurt, he said that it was just a bit stiff, when in fact he had shattered three bones. The brilliant thing about this kind of lie is that it means that you don’t make people pay attention to you and then later when people find out the truth (if your arm falls off or something) then people will probably call you, “incredibly brave”. Luckily most of the time you don’t have to endure the attention of people calling you “incredibly brave” because if you’re playing this right then the first symptom most people should notice of your illness is death.

You may have noticed that while most of the web world has gone hog wild for tags google have been putting in labels all over the place. Is it just their foolish attempt to stamp their authority on the web. Are we going to suddenly have Jimbo Whales jumping up and down shouting, “I told you don’t fight the web”?

Well no google does use both they just use them in different contexts (although they have been known to get them a bit confused) and the difference between these contexts is quite useful.

Tags are meant for making sense of things that other people have created. Labels are used for making sense of things you have created. So on del.icio.us people are tagging things and perhaps a folksonomy will emerge but it also allowed in this context to have personal tags which don’t describe the thing, eg the popular towatch and toread. People are using the tags here to help themselves organise the data out in the world.

But here on my blogger powdered blog I’m labeling because I the author am categorising my own creations.

It’s a difference but it’s a very useful one. Not as some commentators have said simply google being controlling.

Many people see the theatre as the height of bourgeois living, okay so maybe they see the opera or ballet as the height, but theatre is certainly up there.

There does however seem to have been an important change going on in London because recently football, the working class game, has become more expensive to attend than theatre.

Theatre, like sport, is live. And perhaps most importantly theatre attunes your senses in the same way that sport does when you are there. You concentrate much more on the mechanics of the production as well as the story in the theatre whereas if you’re watching a movie it can be easy to get lost in the film.

Now some might say that it is this getting lost within the film that makes film superior to theatre and there almost certainly is some truth in that. But the knowledge that all of this is being done in front of you for real, without and tricky shots of funny edits more than makes up for it. I think you must experience both to appreciate either.

But the question remains, if it’s cheaper to go to the theatre than it is to go to football doesn’t this mean that theatre can no longer just be for the elite? Or perhaps it is the other way around and actually it is simply that Chelsea and Arsenal are no longer real football clubs? Unlike, for example, AFC Wimbledon.

There are some really simple ideas that come along sometimes and change everything. These are ideas that the moment you hear them makes you think, “oh that’s so obvious” but they really change everything. I’m not talking about things like Evolution or the world is round which are big ideas but have a lot of science behind them. It’s obvious to us now that the world is round because we’ve seen it from space but the first time it was said it wasn’t so obvious.

There’s a great apocryphal story about an employee at the Swan Vesta firm (they match matches etc). This guy who was like a janitor or something said to his bosses, “will you give me a million pounds if I tell you my idea and we use it – honestly it’s worth more but you have to promise that you’ll pay me if you use it”. After a lot of humming and hawing the firm agreed to give him the money if they used his idea. So he told them the idea, which was brilliant in its simplicity which was, “why don’t you only put the sandpaper only on one side of the box”. And all of the money that was saved by doing this was far in excess of the million pounds that they had to pay him.

This story might be true because nobody has ever disproved it but it’s almost certainly a reverse engineered story based on somebody having a conversation about how one kind of match box cost less to produce than another and then concocting the story around it.

The thing is that it’s very difficult to make money from some ideas. Some ideas are so brilliantly simple that they can’t actually be used to make money because they are so easy to copy. And some simply wouldn’t work in the same way if they were monitised. For example the world wide web and wikipedia are great examples of incredibly powerful things that were given away freely because they needed to be free or they wouldn’t have been successful. People like Tim Berners-Lee and Jimmy Wales must get asked all of the time if they wish, now they’ve seen the success of their inventions, that they had added a charge or royalties to it. And yet neither of them would have ever been successful if the charge applied.

I really think that the best way that people are going to find to save the world environmentally are going to be ideas like this. Ideas that don’t actually cost anything, or ideas which cost but cost far less than the current situation but can’t shift more units. By the very nature of environmentalism less is more. So how are these inventions or even less than inventions these ideas going to get through to us when it is in no companies interest to transmit them. This goes against the edict of consume more so how will it ever succeed?

Well in a closed system like a global economy the externalities will eventually internalise all by themselves. We have suddenly started seeing oil companies concerned about global warming. Why? That doesn’t make any sense does it? They should be the last people to come round to it. They want to be selling us their last barrel of energy. Yes of course they do but a large part of their business is supplying us with energy for heat. What if it starts getting warmer all by itself? They’d be out of business. The external cost of a warming planet has suddenly become and internal cost without the government even doing anything.

So firms will become concerned with this problem sufficiently to help us change our habits. But the big question is what if the solution is simply to consume less. Is it possible within the economy for this to naturally occur without massive government intervention?

I’m not particularly hopeful, we shall see.

Here’s an example which helps see how likely this is:

On average 62 billion e-mails are sent every day. Yes 62 billion! Obviously this is an estimate but even so it’s a big old number. Sounds about right to me though. 2 billion on the internet, 31 e-mails a day. Sounds about right. Some people are clearly slacking to keep the average down (I think I’m in about 100+).

A large chunk of this e-mail is kept – forever. Just stored on servers, on home computers, on work mailboxes. Just sitting there. And then those servers back this up and keep the same thing day after day even though it’s not really changing. That’s a lot of storage being used. And maybe it’s useful, maybe it is. I’m not going to argue about that really.

But take a look at the last e-mail conversation you had with somebody. Say it was 10 back and forth e-mails on a subject. This means that you have 10 e-mails in your sent items and 10 in your received. But in each subsequent e-mail the e-mail gets longer because it quotes from the one before it. So the tenth e-mail has all of the previous e-mail parts in it when they are totally unnecessary most of the time. I won’t say totally all of the time because from time to time I’ve looked back to see what I said if the conversation is happening slowly. But I only look down to look back because it’s conveniently there if it wasn’t I’d look back to my sent items.

Now a lot of these messages are spam which doesn’t get replied to, but a lot of e-mail is just these back and forth conversations which are just getting longer and longer.

Surely there is a better way? A better way of dealing with this? Surely it would take just a few key players to solve this problem. A few key firms to go in and change something to make this go away. But the problem is that you can’t sell it. Microsoft would be accused of taking a feature away from the users. And even though people wouldn’t miss it after a month or two and it would help save the world in a very small step at a time kind of a way people will never do it because it would mean giving up something that is only very occasionally useful and most of the time just takes up disk space – and the just in case thing would stop the change.

It’s the same reason that one supermarket hasn’t stopped selling plastic bags. If you force the customer to change and the customer doesn’t want to they’ll just shop elsewhere. But does the blunt instrument of tax work better? Perhaps we just need to help educate the companies about how the externalities are going to internalise all by themselves eventually.

Here’s a thought that occurs: which is the perversion being naked or wearing clothes? Not that I’m a nudist I’m a card carrying clothes wearer. One of the few clothes wearers who feels the need to carry a card no less. But here’s my point.

There is an extent to which perversion is defined as doing what most people aren’t doing. But that kind of definition falls down when you realise that not many people are making lace anymore. Are the lacemakers perverted? Of course not. So we need a different definition.

Actually what would happen if you were a nudist, you’d grown up in a nudist colony, and you had always secretly wanted to wear clothes. Would you be a closet clothes wearer?

I imagine that the best alternative is to say that perversion is things that are animalistically not normal. Things like, supposedly, being gay. The idea being, I guess, that procreation is always supposed to be about making babies. This despite the fact that there are gay animals and all animals are naked.

This takes us back to that pointless definition which I guess is “people who do things which I don’t”. Is their any other kind of argument?

I can’t imagine one, which leaves us in the situation that everyone in the world is perverted except for you. Or that no one is perverted. Which is it? Or is it another word destined for the scrap heap?

How much does a pint of milk actually cost? You may think the answer is about seventy pence but actually this isn’t true. Dairy farming is subsidised like most other forms of farming. And it’s subsidised by Europe under the Common Agricultural Policy. Since the moment the CAP was put into place people have been saying that it needs reform and yet there it is still unreformed.

The point of the CAP is to make European farmer’s products cheap enough to compete with foreign products. Generally these products are cheaper to produce abroad because of weather, efficiencies and cheaper labour.

It’s generally been seen a cheaper to subsidise farmers than it is to put tarrifs on things that you are importing. This is largely based on the idea that people will generally get in touch with you to claim free money but might not mention the fact that they need to pay you some tax.

But perhaps now is the time to consider a switch to tariffs? One of the reasons that milk produced in Australia and New Zealand is cheaper than milk produced in the UK is that shipping goods across the world doesn’t cost very much. In fact the main problem is that it doesn’t cost enough. If you are running a tariff based system normally there is a large transaction cost. You have to go through a massive mixed shipment and say, “right how many bananas have you got”? And so on.

But imagine we had discovered that there was suddenly a non selfish reason to support our local farmers. Imagine it wasn’t just the old arguments about protecting local jobs and protecting food supplies during times of war. What if we suddenly discovered a reason that belching out gallons and gallons of oil transporting fruit and veg across the world was bad. What if suddenly the transportation was the issue? I am of course talking about global warming.
If all you had to do when a ship arrived was ask it for its port of origin, which already happens, and then apply a levy based on the number of miles traveled and the weight of the ship it would make things very simple.
Making this change would be a massive shift in the economy because instead of just protecting farmers it would also protect manufacturing and all manner of other jobs that have been moved to where the wages are cheaper.
The one problem is that goods would become more expensive. But on the other hand because we wouldn’t be funding CAP any more we would pay less money in tax.

The biggest problem does come back to the issue of the pint of milk. If the price goes up then for people who pay tax there will be relief based on the lack of tax they have to pay. But what about people who pay no tax?
There are clearly some issues to work out but I think that the farmers will prefer working in a situation where there is actual money to be made farming. And that their goods aren’t just going into a milk lake.
You never know. It could work.