My friend Ivor wrote recently about a scheme being run at his daughter’s school, involving an odd form of sponsorship by a certain doughnut corporation. Long story short, the entire scheme basically just consisted of the school selling doughnuts to children, a portion of the profits from which, would go to some kind of “good cause”. Rather than consulting parents first about the idea, the first contact Ivor had was effectively a sales letter from the school, inviting him to pre-purchase some doughnuts.
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What is God?
I recently came across an article, linked to by my friend Jason, that piqued my interest. The whole article, Why I am an atheist, is well worth a read, but it was a statement at the end that drew my attention:
I could be converted to theism if… God, or a god, showed himself or performed an act that unambiguously proved both his existence and his attributes as an immortal, omnipotent being. As to what that proof would constitute: that god himself, if omnipotent, would be the perfect arbiter of what would conclusively prove to six billion people that he existed.
There’s several important points to consider here. Firstly, just because human beings are not perfect beings does not mean they cannot evaluate some questions or problems perfectly. Take tic-tac-toe (noughts and crosses) for example. We know how to play the perfect game of tic-tac-toe. I’m not talking about very good or even excellent, I’m talking about mathematically perfect. It is possible to play a perfect game of tic-tac-toe so that one cannot lose — only draw, at the worst, if the opponent also plays the perfect game. That doesn’t mean that every person on this planet knows the method to do so, but the potential is there. What this illustrates is that in a game, or scenario, with finite parameters, one does not have to be perfect — only good enough. Once that “good enough” is reached, being any better doesn’t help, right through expert to omnipotent. (more…)
The Daily Mail’s portrayal of cannabis is textbook bad journalism
Generally speaking, I try not to get too hung up on the individual failings of articles in the right wing press. I could spend from now until Christmas objectively criticising just one edition of the Express or Mail – and they are tame compared to their American counterparts. Every so often however, they seem to lose the plot a little bit, drop their pseudo-moderate cover and output what can only be described as textbook, blatant propoganda, the likes of which Joseph Goebbels would be proud. Every once in a while, the logical jumps made become so cavernous, that one is forced to consider the possibility that the Daily Mail is in fact a working proof of Poe’s Law; that their ranks are in fact filled with undercover liberals, pretending to hold conservative viewpoints, while deliberately presenting themselves as idiots, in order to discredit the conservative ideology.
Press editorial standards, including those supposedly upheld by the PPC, state that there should be a separation between news and opinion. That means that the DM is free, within reason, to publish its racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, xenophobic, hysterical and illogical babble, so long is it is clearly portrayed as opinion. It is also free, should it choose to make such a bold leap, to publish actual facts, about actual things, things that actually happened. What it is not free to do, is to mix the two up. Of course, this means that yesterday it went ahead and did exactly that, exploiting the death of a young man to push its anti-drugs message. (more…)
Executive pay is just the symptom
Since the start of the financial crisis and the bank bailout, there has been a marked increase in public interest regarding executive pay. It’s not that executives didn’t earn ridiculous salaries before then, but because we were in a boom time, the economy was something most people simply took for granted. The only people asking questions back then were generally written off by the mainstream as “silly socialists who are jealous of success”. We were all sucked into the American dream, that one day it might be us up there on the top floor, calling the shots and raking in the dough. The fantasy was so lucid that even when we despised our bosses, we still dreamed of being in their shoes. There was no question about whether people at the top should earn as much as they do. With the crisis however, came the media attention on the banks, with both socialists and traditional conservatives demanding answers. (more…)
Asda’s “Job Creation” should be met with scepticism
David Cameron has praised the announcement by Asda that it will be creating approximately five thousand new jobs, as part of an expansion drive this year. The plans involve the opening of twenty-five new stores, three new depots and the refurbishment of existing stores. The supermarket also announced that it would be allowing some of the new staff to work as part of City and Guilds apprenticeships. According to Asda, half of its new employees in last year were young people, with a large number coming through the Job Centre.
Of course, all of the above sounds brilliant at face value. It’s understandable why David Cameron is pleased by this; since his government came to power, their mantra has been to cull the public sector in the belief that the private sector would expand and create jobs. It’s unsurprising that every time a private corporation creates a significant amount of jobs, he feels vindicated. The problem with that is it leads to a lack of questioning. When people believe they have been proved right, they don’t stop to ask whether that’s really the case. Cameron, desperate to see growth in the private sector to prove him right, doesn’t stop to question the details when jobs are created. (more…)
What ever happened to conviction?
Conviction. Not of the criminal kind, but the act, the nature, of sticking to your beliefs. What ever happened to it?
I may not be all that old, but I’m pretty sure there was a time when people had it – or at least, some people had it. Yet it seems we’re at an all time low right now. Looking at the commentary following the death of Steve Jobs a few days ago reminded me of how bad things really are. People who I often agree with, who stand up and speak out for fair trade, localism, workers’ rights, environmentalism and against consumerism, mourning for the CEO of a company whose own actions are the complete opposite to all those ideals. That isn’t to say that Apple are any worse than their competitors, but we don’t put their competitors on a pedestal. People seem to think that it’s rebellious to leave Microsoft for Apple, which leaves me drowning in irony. (more…)
Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
The infamous words above, of course, from Macbeth. I thought of these words in relation to the recent spate of protests, of the Occupy kind and otherwise. Let me say first that I am greatly supportive of these protests. I am also however, concerned. (more…)
Trans-generational Mortgages in the UK?
Following my earlier comments on how we risk entering an age of neo-feudalism, I decided to investigate further the prospects of trans-generational mortgages; that is, mortgages that are taken out by one person and passed down to their children.
It has been the case for a long time that house prices have risen at a greater, almost exponential rate, in comparison to wages. Prices rose particularly greatly between 1970 and 2000, but in the interests of projecting for tomorrow, I am going to focus on statistics for 2000 to today and project to 2025. All of the historical figures used in this analysis come from the Office of National Statistics. (more…)
Thoughts on Dale Farm
Just a couple of thoughts on the planned evictions and demolitions at Dale Farm, where a traveller community has overshot its planning permission:
I wonder how people’s attitude would change if instead of travellers who had overstepped their planning permit, it was a middle class community who had built 4 bedroom houses?
Guess what: evicting these people, bulldozing everything and then dealing with the homeless men, women and children you’ve created is going to cost a hell of a lot more taxpayer money than just leaving them be. Yes, they were wrong to overstep their planning permission (might I add overstep – since they did rightfully have it for half the site), but going in with bulldozers is mindlessly destructive. (more…)
Neo-Feudalism
We now risk entering an era that might be best described as neo-feudalism. The children of the next generation will be divided into distinct classes, of those who own, and those who are effectively owned. One will inherit property, the other trans-generational mortgages. One will own companies and take profits, the other will work all available hours at “competitive” rates, to pay the interest on their debts, that they might lessen the burden on their children.
We may even reach the stage where the indebted effectively sign themselves over to their creditors, where the monetary chain is bypassed and work is done directly for creditors in exchange for continued subsistence. This is not an impossible conclusion to the road we have set ourselves upon.