The Skull Sessions

Maths for Dummies

2008-10-19T23:51:00.002+08:00

I have maintained for a long time that there are some things that you just can’t operate like a business. Education and Health are prime examples; one must be prepared to sink money into it without seeing an immediate financial return, certainly not in the same quarter, at least using the traditional benchmarks. The banking system is testament to what happens when you allow big business to independently administer every aspect of an industry; consumers receive an inferior product at a premium. Unlike the technology industry, for example, where companies have to innovate and improve their product to stay ahead, the banking industry is more or less stagnant; savings or loan – it’s pretty much the same 2 products renamed and rebranded over and over. Hence it stands to reason that the only way to increase profitability for shareholders is to minimise the value for money received by consumers.

As the years went by, my disdain for commerce has only increased. I used to think that perhaps my distrust and disgust were symptomatic of my tender age, that one day I would grow out of it, emerging from my anti-establishment cocoon to soar in the corporate sky, like baby-boomers emerging from the age of Aquarius. If anything, the opposite is true; I only get angrier at how things operate “business as usual”.

I now believe that nothing can be operated like a business. The economy is a lie.

I have a few irreconcilable differences with commerce. Firstly it does not achieve many of its perceived benefits. Money is meant to provide a stable benchmark to which relative value of goods and services can be assigned. It is meant to be a comparison tool for accounting purposes, money itself does not have a value. However the fact that it does not have a set value (such as the gold standard, as used to be the case) means that a balancing act of inflation (a measure of the decreasing value of money) interest rates (a measure of the cost of money), and printing more money must be maintained, a veritable dog chasing it’s tail.

Secondly for something imaginary, the economy certainly holds a lot of sway. In fact it is probably at the top of the pecking order as far as motivation for goodwill and enmity alike. A buck to be made sure helps lubricate the wheels of charity; similarly few motives for evil are as compelling as money, both at an individual level and an international level (I think the transparent foreign policy of certain nations are case in point). The economy is meant to be a tool that serves the needs of the people; it is meant to make it easier for people to get on with the business of being in business. However it is usually the people who become the slave to the economy.

Take John Howard’s Baby Bonus of 2004 for instance; rather than reconfigure economic theory to fit the economy around the changing characteristics and needs of the population, it was considered easier to just increase the population. Increase the number of consumers. Hopefully increase the proportion of workers (although this is dependant on the values of the recipients of the baby bonus). Real, tangible human life was created to perpetuate the imaginary concept called the economy. I thought the church was the only institution that encouraged people to have kids to perpetuate imaginary concepts…

Thirdly, with no amount of drinking is the inner nerd in me able to get over the criminally shoddy maths. For something that is so pivotal to the steady functioning of society why is it that the level of mathematics used to measure and model the economy is so deficient? The academic prerequisites for business school so lenient? It alarms me that when I hear market reports I don’t usually hear economists quoting rock-solid facts and figures relating to a commodity. Economists remark on “trader confidence”. That’s your indicator? Whether or not some business school grad is having a good day or not? What the hell did you learn in those 3 years at uni!?! The current recession that the world is in, despite politicians dragging their feet in calling it that, is due to too many greedy people with a poor grasp of the fundamentals of mathematics. A poor grasp of ethics is also a strong factor.

When you want expert advice about your health, you consult a doctor, who with their own extensive, exhaustive education and training, combined with centuries of refined and documented medical research can give you a pretty good idea about what is wrong with you. When you want expert advice about quantum mechanics, and the behaviour of infinitesimally small particles, you consult a professor of physics who could not only inform you about how the location and momentum of small particles becomes immeasurable, professor will be able to quantify the uncertainty.

If you want expert advice on insurance, credit, mortgages, debt packaging, trade, market trends, or the economy in general, I’d probably still take my chances with the doctor or the physics professor.

The fat of the land

2008-08-30T01:04:00.006+08:00

It doesn’t matter who or where you are, it’s almost impossible to imagine any other world, any other way of life. You could be an isolated hermit in the deep jungles of Brazil not knowing how a city-slicker 100km away may live. Good, white-bread Christian folk in Sydney could not imagine how an indigenous Australian would live in the remote far north. Simply, unless you are immersed in a culture for any length of time, it is inconceivable to you.

Is it possible that we also have a tenuous understanding of ourselves? Of our history, of our way of life? In a relatively short time our way of life has changed so dramatically, our own history is so far removed from us; the lifestyle of our forefathers unrecognisable to us as ours would be to them.

Our way of life toiled along for centuries before lurching forward noisily and grimily with the industrial revolution’s steam engine, speeding up economically with the combustion engine and being optimised by the computer chip. In the 21st Century we live in predictable comfort (usually at the expense of people who live out of our immediate field of vision) with no natural predators or real threats to survival. We have so many tools at our disposal, to perform a variety of tasks from simple everyday chores to complex specialist tasks. We are uniquely placed to fulfil our potential.

But so what? At what cost? I think the external costs to our environment and to other populations have been discussed pretty extensively across all facets of the media. I’m talking about the cost to ourselves. How many essential skills have we abandoned to acquire trivial skills that seem indispensible in our world? Are we doing any better for it?

Physically

You don’t have to go far to observe the consequence of living in the lap of ease. Western society likes to call it an obesity epidemic, like it was something unforeseen, something inflicted upon us. However the very way we go about our everyday lives is responsible. We almost always elect to take the easy route. Convenience. How easy is it to grab a packet of chips or go through the drive-through? As much as it may seem like a chore, how easy is it to drive to the shops and go grocery shopping?

Our brainpower has enabled us to make food available to a lot of people with little effort on their behalf. However our bodies have not adapted as rapidly as our food production methods. For hundreds of thousands of years humankind has needed to expend a sizeable proportion of their energy in obtaining more food. Hunting, gathering, preparing food, repairing tools, seasonal migration to more fertile areas assured that man was always behind the eight ball, always needed to invest themselves physically in securing food. These days a great proportion of people work jobs that are not only far removed from direct sourcing of food, but also does not require expending much energy. Arguably we would be a lot healthier if we had to chase down or dig up every meal. We would probably also appreciate the meal a lot more, having put so much effort into getting it and would probably waste far less.

Rather than people’s health needs being met by the demands of everyday life, in the modern world you have to put in extra time. People who are so compelled spend hours after work everyday at a gym, answering their instinctual call to improving strength (or at least half-heartedly forcing themselves to use some of that 6 month gym membership they signed up for after the Christmas holidays).

Mentally

If I were to choose a word to describe modern society, I would chose disaffected. It seems ironic that the closer to each other people are (geographically), the more isolated they tend to feel, the more isolated they feel they have to make themselves. With a few exceptions human beings are social animals; we draw a lot of our happiness and mental well being from healthy social integration and conversely, loneliness is a risk factor for increased stress and poor coping skills.

Traditionally societies were small, close-knit communities, comprised of one extended or several families (which, knowing my family, would present its own…umm…challenges). Every aspect of daily life was done with each other - finding food, chores, entertainment. Skills were passed down, improved over years, from father to son, mother to daughter. Your identity was inextricably linked to what you did, the skills you possessed, your role in society. One had purpose in life, even if the meaning of life was as ambiguous as it still is.

These days most people just go to work to “make a living”. It could be worlds away from what they actually would like to do. Or maybe they are so distracted by conflicting messages from different sources – school, media, peers – that they just don’t know what they want to do. Their disconnectedness from what they do everyday slowly grinds down sense of worth, sense of identity. What they do everyday probably does not have any appreciable, measurable effect on the world they see around them, and hence see all their efforts as a waste of time. They have forgotten the skills that made them relevant, gave them purpose.

Some people attempt to fill the void of purpose with the emptiness of meaning, peddled by any number of spiritual salesmen. It seems to work for most people at least in the sense that they learn to stop worrying and love the con.

Will we ever relearn the skills that made us relevant, at least to ourselves?

“Time to draw a line in the sand…”

2008-08-20T21:38:00.004+08:00

There are few phrases that make me want to cough up furballs more than "...draw a line in the sand...". It’s the must-have accessory for politicians and management alike but unlike other fashion items, it never seems to be out of season. I have heard it used almost weekly by all manner of people in relation to all manner of subjects. It is a phrase meant to convey that the user perceives an issue to have a definite affirmative and negative position. All unsavoury grey area in between can be neatly divided by the metaphoric (and usually arbitrary) "line in the sand", below which it just doesn't cut it, and above which it's rock'n'roll.

In her excellent book Triumph of the Airheads and the Retreat from Common Sense Shelley Gare talks about "Something-Nothing"; the phenomena of saying something but really saying nothing. It's not a particularly new concept; this unfortunately has been the all too easily accepted mode of communication between politicians, HR or PR, and the general public for decades. In fact fluency in Something-Nothing is probably an official prerequisite to enter these positions.

To me this line smacks of Something-Nothing. The issue selected is usually a no-brainer. One that is so pervasive and common that it has kind of faded into the background sound of collective consciousness. But one day it may become an election issue or it receives some bad press and suddenly we all look to someone to pick up that big stick and draw the all-important line in the sand. Thank God! Catastrophe averted.

I'm not sure if anyone else shares the same aversion to this ridiculous line that I do. Maybe some people really dig it. Maybe some people can really get behind a man that has the fortitude to draw a line in sand. But I just can't help but feel that it is a poorly chosen phrase for something that is meant to convey the gravity of an issue, careful consideration of the options, and steadfast conviction in purpose. It’s a statement that is usually used to build a policy upon.

But I wouldn't build on sand. Everyone knows you need a foundation. And the best foundation is stone (or at least its man-made equivalent - concrete).

Part of my disdain to this phrase is the fact that lines drawn in sand are as ephemeral as the waves that wash them away. We have all been to the beach and built sand-castles and written our names in big letters and …. drawn lines in the sand, sometimes in the form of a whale or stick-figures. We do so knowing full well that when we go home the waves will claim back our art and redistribute our siliceous media along the beach if not around the globe. This is part of the fun.

Perhaps, consciously or unconsciously (probably the former), this power phrase is used by people for similar reasons. It allows one to appear resolute and decisive in the short-term, but later allows one to inconspicuously wipe the line away with their foot when they need to change their position on something.

"Where's the line gone? Ooops - there it is, over there. How did you get over there?! Silly ol' line..."

This may fly with some people, but if you're making major policy decisions and need a guiding principle to build on, if you want to impress me, you better be carving that into stone. Moses had the right idea. He came down a mountain with his party policy inscribed in frickin’ stone tablets. People still listen to him. That's street cred. Public Relations consultants have been scrambling to catch up with that particular campaign launch since. But in the end one only needs to know one thing: It's better to build on stone than on sand.

Embarkation

2008-08-18T22:23:00.001+08:00

This for me is the first step in what I hope will be many in the world of blogging. Were I a religious man I might say that I feel “blessed” with this opportunity to have my written word made available to anyone who may be interested enough to read it without having to go through the traditional routes of publishing, although depending on your inclination it may be more correct to say that I get off on adding to the overflowing cesspool of online wannabe pseudo-intellectuals. This may well be the case.

I’m probably not saying anything new here, but as my first post I’d like to first express how privileged I feel to be able to harness this incredible tool for what is essentially a selfish end; to have people listen to me. I’d also like to reflect upon the dynamics of the Internet, blogging or social networking sites in particular, and whether it has empowered or disempowered us all.

I’d like to think the former. I’d like to think that the Internet has brought about the democratization of information. I once heard an interview (with whom I cannot remember) and the guest spoke about how empowerment of the working and/or lower classes really began with the invention of the printing press. Because for the first time people did not have to rely on being fed information by authority figures (perhaps with their own motives and agendas or perhaps just fallibility); people who were literate (albeit few) could access it themselves. Before the economic and time saving benefits of the printing press each copy of a book or document had to be painstakingly copied by hand, a time consuming and expensive process which ultimately could only be afforded by wealthy individuals or institutions (like the monarchy or the church).

Economic methods of mass reproduction of information gave people greater affordable access to information, and over time education became relatively affordable, the cultural norm, rather than the exception. Power shifted (at least partially) from the wealthy to the working and/or lower class, as for the first time in history they harnessed the ability to interpret and decide for themselves, without the biased conduit.

I think the advent of the Internet and blogs – like one’s own personal editorial – brought about another epoch of democracy and media, just when it was needed. The decade prior, at least, saw embarrassing erosion in the standard of journalism, largely brought about by the increasing importance placed upon the commercial value of media. Don’t get me wrong – commerce has always played an important part in media, especially the early days of newspapers, and many of the more reputable rags probably would not be around today had they not forged a balanced partnership with their commercial sponsors. The problem is that many of these newspapers don’t exist anymore in a sense; by means of various corporate takeovers and buyouts by the Foxes and Fairfaxes of the world, they have been absorbed into the indistinguishable and undistinguished fabric of corporate media and diluted of any journalistic originality.

The Internet and the freedom for much of society to participate in widely readable (or viewable or listenable) discourse has clawed back some of the power of expression that over time had once again largely been reclaimed by the privileged or rather wealthy few. It means that people don’t need to be particularly wealthy, well educated or involved in media to have a voice. If you can access a computer for some length of time, you can be heard.

But is this necessarily a good thing? Do we really need every Tom, Dick and Harry putting in their two cents about issues they have no idea about? Or even just wasting valuable gigabytes filling servers with vacuous conversations about So You Think You Can Survive Idol, punctuated by “lol”’s and “OMG”’s and “LMFAO”’s and seemingly endless permutations of the humble yellow smiley face? Is this a fair compromise?

A diligent Internet user has to wade through considerable quagmire to locate what they are after. Hidden somewhere beyond all the commercial Google hits like for eBay, who attempts to sell you whatever it is you entered as a search string, and all the advertisements for penis enlargements and porn and celebrity forums, may be what you are actually looking for.

In the end, it is ultimately the means to a selfish end for me. But perhaps one day something I say in future entries may strike a chord with someone. They may agree with me or change their way of thinking. Preferably they’ll disagree with me and may or may not endeavour to change my views on things. I may make someone angry. Might make someone interested in a subject or an issue they knew nothing about if only for the sole reason of rebutting or correcting me. And that’s gotta be good right?